Bonding over mistakes

Perhaps it's due to my own inexperience in all things film, but I have always ascribed a feeling of stiffness and flawlessness to movies. The ability to edit, to reshoot, to reset —it's all foreign to little ol' theatre-trained me. And since the process is unfamiliar and I only ever see the finished product, I admit that I often forget to think about how similar film can sometimes be to theatre.

My eyes were opened in part when I watched Martin Scorsese's Hugo, which featured an in-depth and wonder-filled trip into the inner workings of early film --specifically, those made by Georges Méliès. Méliès' work, which includes the famous Le Voyage dans la Lune, is entertaining at face value, but it was only after watching Hugo that I fully appreciated the theatrical nature of his creations. The sets, although they appear flat, were multi-layered to allow for several entrance/exit points and for manipulation of focus or optical illusions. All special effects were devised and carried out by tireless individuals. The whole process was free of the cynicism that modern film technology has endowed us with. The desire to tell a great story still reigned supreme.

Fast forward 50-some-odd years from Méliès's time, and once again I had the mistaken idea that there was nothing in that era of film for theatre-me to connect with. Then one of my daily timewasters, The Daily What, found a compilation of clips that sent film and theatre crashing together again in a flurry of swear words and laughs.

Now, usually in film you never see a flubbed line or an accident, and unless the actors' improvisation turns out to be better than the script there is little chance for the audience to see the actor behind the character. Of course, film actors do screw up on set. Some modern films include these bloopers and blunders in the closing credits, and many more will compile them for DVD/Blu-ray special features. But I have never before seen bloopers from the era of classic, black and white Hollywood, and that's what makes this compilation so special.

(Watch right to the end. I promise it's worth it.)




They're people! Making mistakes! Just like you and me! It seems silly to have to discover that, but it really did take me this long. But the connections I made throughout that video were comforting and full of nostalgia, to say the least. The faces and sounds that these befuddled actors produced brought me right back to rehearsal rooms, where a garbled phrase or mistimed line would send all of us into fits of laughter. I'm smiling just thinking of the fun we were able to have and the bonds we were able to create, all thanks to mistakes.

I am now far less likely to draw a wide dividing line between film and theatre, at least when it comes to acting. Regardless of the media machine or the technological advances, we should never forget that at the heart of any great film or play are people who share a passion for telling stories and who are not above making (slight) fools of themselves.