Fun with backgrounds. Essay. 600 words, 3-minute read.
Backfield in Motion
By Ray Tabler
Monty Python’s Holy Grail is a very silly movie to begin with. Squires scurry behind scampering characters, simulating hoofbeats with coconuts. Lonely nuns shine a beacon from their convent to lure unsuspecting knights errant. Savage killer rabbits lurk. There is so much silly, it leaks into the background.
A look at the first image of this essay (above) shows when Arthur is retreating from an assault on the French castle. The French are pummeling his brave knights with debris, like…cows. But one character (I think it’s John Cleese) is still doggedly slashing away at the stone castle wall with his broadsword.
And that’s what this is about. Movies, and TV shows too, often have all kinds of strange stuff going on in the background. It’s easy to miss, but adds to enjoyment, usually.
In one part of Men In Black, Tommy Lee Jones is taking care of business, while Will Smith is conducting some cultural exchange with an alien in the background. And yes, the twin towers of the World Trade Center are visible beyond Will Smith. The first Men In Black was released in 1997, three years before those towers fell. Still sobering to catch a glimpse of them in the background of a movie or show, even now.
Early on in Ghostbusters, the boys try to zap a “…focused, non-terminal repeating phantasm…” (the gluttonous, green slimer). Unfortunately, they miss and incinerate a hotel maid’s cart instead. Below, you can see the shell-shocked maid trying to extinguish rolls of flaming toilet paper with a spray bottle of Windex, while the ghostbusters discuss tactics for the next encounter.
Sometimes the audience has to do some interpretation of enigmatic expressions of backgrounders. In the shot from Lord of the Rings, Return of the King below, the overwhelming forces of Mordor are pouring forth from the Black Gate to surround Aragon’s smaller army. Legolas, in my opinion, is thinking maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. Gandalf is clearly reconsidering his life choices.
The following shot from 1974’s The Four Musketeers flips the script, because the background action is happening in the foreground. A priest is dutifully blessing each cannon in turn. Because they shoot straighter that way. The frightened goats shown might be some subtle commentary about the futility of war. But this isn’t that type of essay.
Also from The Four Musketeers, our hero D’Artagnan is in intense discussion with Buckingham. Off to the side, the minor character of Planchet is fascinated by a pair of native Americans imported presumably as conversation pieces by Buckingham.
A memorable example of comedic backfield gens is Professor Fate’s moose. In the 1965 romp The Great Race, Jack Lemon plays Professor Fate (Fate the Magnificent), a mustache-twirling, turn of the century villain. In the shot below Fate and his henchman (Peter Falk) scramble to usher Natalie Wood in for dinner. Easily missed is that the moose head trophy on display in Fate’s elegant dining room has a moose’s rear end protruding from the other side of the wall.
Well, there are some examples of notable, barely-noticeable background details. They can slide right on by if you’re not paying attention. But once you see them, they add to the enjoyment of the film. I’m sure you can add some of your own.
END.
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