For fifteen years, from her teens into her early thirties, my sister was a professional ballerina. That's an eternity in the dance world, spending her days in plies and pirouettes, embodying the grace of a dying swan for many a company and on numerous stages.
D. K. Wall:But this tale isn't about those performances. No, instead, I want to address the rumors whispered in the wings beyond the glow of the stage lights about the day of her break into the world of being a movie star. The legend of her big screen debut.
D. K. Wall:When her celluloid break arrived, she danced with the Montgomery Ballet. One fateful afternoon, the artistic director swept into the studio and made a pronouncement with the distinct ring of Hollywood or at least Hollywood that had lost its map and compass considering they were deep in Alabama. A major motion picture, sought talent who could, and I quote, move in artistic ways.
D. K. Wall:That was it. That was the casting call. Movement.
D. K. Wall:And who can move better than a professional dancer? With precious few other details, they imagined bringing a major musical to moviegoing audiences. What an opportunity.
D. K. Wall:My sister and another dancer were selected or perhaps they volunteered. Or, and this was the most likely scenario, they were lured by the siren song of a paycheck that didn't depend on the ticket sales for The Nutcracker.
D. K. Wall:Let's just say the compensation for most professional dancers isn't exactly in the top tax bracket.
D. K. Wall:Our lucky pair piled into a car and drove to the undisputed movie making Mecca of Selma, Alabama, Tinseltown of the South. Upon arriving at the designated location, they were immediately introduced to the first and most sacred rule of the film world. Waiting.
D. K. Wall:They performed a master class in the fine art of sitting for hours, still clueless what role they were to play.
D. K. Wall:Just when all hope was lost, a production assistant, barely old enough to rent a car, beckoned them into a warehouse the size of an airplane hangar.
D. K. Wall:The set, to be fair, was a wonderland of cinematic chaos. An entire small town Main Street had been constructed indoors. Storefronts, lampposts, parked cars, a smoking helicopter lying on its side like a great wounded beast.
D. K. Wall:Twisting along the fake Main Street was a single solitary set of dolly tracks for the camera. Yes. A camera. The budget, it seemed, had been largely consumed by the helicopter rental and pyrotechnics. Multiple angles couldn't be afforded.
D. K. Wall:Still in the jeans and T shirts they had driven in, they were instructed to lie on the pavement near the tracks, joining a few dozen other souls. The direction was simple and profound. Simulate the agony of a painful death by squirming as the camera rolled by.
D. K. Wall:Confused and wondering how their dance skills qualified them for such a performance, they embraced the direction. They were prepared for anything except falling rain. Indoors.
D. K. Wall:A grid of overhead sprinklers kicked on, casting a miserable drizzle upon the near corpses below. This might have been a refreshing artistic choice had anyone bothered to mention the impending indoor meteorological event. They were now simulating a painful, agonizing, and very damp death in the only clothes they possessed for the journey.
D. K. Wall:Despite the discomfort, a glimmer of talent must have shown through. Something caught the eye of the director or the assistant director or the assistant to the assistant director or perhaps the assistant's intern.
D. K. Wall:Whoever, once the take was finished, my sister and her friend were plucked from the damp pavement and told to report to makeup. Most everyone else was given a hearty, "Don't call us. We'll call you."
D. K. Wall:Years of mastering the pas de dois had apparently forged the perfect pas de mort.
D. K. Wall:Dancers are accustomed to stage makeup, but what followed was an ordeal lasting several hours.
D. K. Wall:A team of artists meticulously transformed them into extras from a George Romero B side, crafting gaping wounds and gruesome burns. By the time they were done, the dancers didn't need to act like they were on the verge of death between excruciating hours waiting, a lack of food, a soaking indoor rain, and no clear instructions, they succumbed to the power of method acting to mimic death.
D. K. Wall:Finally released from the grips of the makeup artist, they were sent not to the set, but to catering. Inside a giant tent, a glorious banquet was spread before them. But there was a catch.
D. K. Wall:"Don't move your faces too much," they were warned. "No wide chewing. Keep your mouths closed." Their beautiful expensive wounds might crack. They were dying of hunger surrounded by food they couldn't properly eat.
D. K. Wall:At long last, stomachs rumbling, they were summoned to the stage. It was time for their close-up. Their role, it was now crystal clear, was to die slowly, agonizingly, beautifully. Who else but a dancer with their unparalleled body control could execute such a maneuver on command?
D. K. Wall:And so upon hearing the call for action, they died.
D. K. Wall:Wasn't quite good enough.
D. K. Wall:"Take two, faster this time." And so they died again.
D. K. Wall:"Take three slower." And again.
D. K. Wall:"Let's try it this time with a turn." And again.
D. K. Wall:"Now I need you to drop." And again.
D. K. Wall:"Can you do it curvier?"
D. K. Wall:I should note they exchanged a look of profound confusion trying to decipher the geometry of a curvy death. But being professionals, they gave it their best shot.
D. K. Wall:They died in total 18 times, enough to exhaust the lives of not one, but two cats.
D. K. Wall:On the last take, they received the ultimate direction, a single perfect word. They were to writhe. And writhe they did. Trained in the most demanding physical arts, they writhed like no one had ever writhed before. It was the Mount Everest of on screen death throes.
D. K. Wall:"Cut. Print it."
D. K. Wall:A full twenty four hours after their arrival, without a moment of sleep, they were released.
D. K. Wall:They drove back to Montgomery and returned to ballet rehearsals. Save for when a small check arrived in the mail as compensation, they thought little what was to become of their starring moment.
D. K. Wall:Until months later. The movie, a remake of a remake of a legendary, if of somewhat questionable quality film, was released. Overcome with curiosity, they went to the downtown cinema, bought their tickets and a giant popcorn, and settled in to watch their 14 frames of fame.
D. K. Wall:The big scene arrived. The smoking helicopter, the rain swept street, the bodies twisting, turning, dropping, dying. But none, none were riving with the exquisite control of a trained ballerina.
D. K. Wall:The camera swept across the carnage, a slow dramatic pan. Closer and closer it came to our stars, their moment had arrived, and in pure cinematic heartbreak, the camera cut away.
D. K. Wall:Not a toe, not an elbow, not a single artistically blood matted hair made the final cut. Their magnum opus of writhing was left on the cutting room floor.
D. K. Wall:Who knows what might have been? A new genre of physically demanding roles? Professional dancers bringing new heights to on screen deaths? An Oscar for best agonized expiration?
D. K. Wall:That their masterpiece was discarded, unseen by the world is not just their loss. It is cinema's.
D. K. Wall:Hollywood is the poorer for it.