Carlson
As my wife and I watched the Oscar awards last Sunday, she remembered that the last night we watched the entire ceremony was when we lived in Los Angeles back in the early ’70s. That was when we were first married and our TV was a black and white box with a screen about 10 inches on the diagonal.
As to why we sat through the entire Oscars evening and the endless commercials this year, well, the blame or credit for that goes to our younger son who earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in film studies.
What our son has helped us appreciate about filmmaking is the vast number of people who work on the movies we watch. We now no longer watch movies passively, but take a moment to notice the lighting, camera angles, dialogue, scenery, music, pacing and other parts that make up every scene.
Because of what we’ve learned from our son, we no longer turn off a movie when the words “The End” appear on the screen. For the words “The End” aren’t really the end. After those words are the credits, the names of everyone who contributed to making the movie. This usually means that if we’re in a theater, we’re usually the last to leave, staying until the last name scrolls across the screen.
I’m still not sure what a “grip” is or a “best boy,” but I know the movie needed their skills. And as we watch their names flash across the screen, we know the grip’s and the best boy’s parents and families are thrilled to see their daughters’ or sons’ names in the credits, even if those names are usually in small type and are visible on screen for only two or three seconds.
It’s good to remember the hundreds of names in a movie’s credits on Oscar night, for even with all the awards given out, those awards represent only the tip of the iceberg. And that’s just part of the deception of Oscar night. Based on what the cameras show us on that evening, the lives of movie stars look charmed and utterly glamorous. How magical life must be, we imagine, to step out of a limousine and hear people “ooh” and “aah” as cameras click and fans scream our names. It must be heaven, we might think, to be “in the movies.”
But Oscar night is as much an illusion as are the movies we watch. Whether the person is a lead actor or a behind-the-scenes stagehand, everyone involved in the movies is, at the end of the day, working folk. And whether the person is one of the hairdressers or the director, life on a movie set is work, hard work, not for the lazy.
The reality of filmmaking reminds me of that great moment in “The Wizard of Oz,” when Dorothy’s dog, Toto, pulls back the curtain and we see an old man turning a bunch of wheels and gears. That scene, the moment of the great reveal, shows us the truth not just of Oz, but of movies themselves.
Behind the magic, the illusion of movies, are hundreds and sometimes thousands of people turning the wheels and gears of the industry — the cameras, the lighting, the dialogue lessons, the choreographed stunts, the costuming and make-up, the musical soundtracks and all the rest.
I suggest the next time you watch a movie that you pay attention to the “extras,” the actors who sit at a table in the background of a scene or walk past the main actors on a sidewalk. Even though they might not say a word, they’ve probably spent long hours in acting classes, and are now doing their best to sit so normally at that table or walk so casually past the main actors on that sidewalk that we hardly notice them. They too, along with all those toiling behind the cameras, are “in the movies.”
And if you want to honor the contribution of the hundreds whom we don’t see in a movie, stay in your seat in the theater or watch the TV movie until all the credits roll. Not one of those names is really an “extra.” They are all “essentials.”
David Carlson of Franklin is a professor emeritus of philosophy and religion. Send comments to [email protected].
