10 March 2012

The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg, 1928)


Note: As I watched the man in the center of the frame sitting down (right under Emil Jannings), perfect his mustache in order to portray a solider as an extra I started wondering. How it worked. How would this extra direct his performance? Does he have to do anything at all? Or is he simply a part of the mass? What sort of decisions does on extra make; how does he prepare for a 'role'? In this context everything gets even more complicated by the fact that it is an extra playing an extra. How does an extra prepare to play an extra?

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