Directors Notes: 192 - It Doesn't Hold Up

My wife, Jillian Sweeney, is a choreographer, and when we lived in NY, we collaboratively created 3 different contemporary dance pieces. One of those, way back in 2009, was called This could be it. Our initial idea came from Jillian describing an out of body experience she had in childhood. 

The actual out-of-body story is pretty mundane, on its surface (she just found herself above her own body, which was laying on her bed), but the experience itself stuck with her for her whole life. And we played around with the notion of doubles: doppelgängers, alternate realities, conflicting experiences, etc. 

She recorded a video of a dance in the actual theater where it would be performed. And when we did the show live, she performed that dance again, with the recording projected on the back wall. It gave the feel of a simulcast feed. 

But when the video was recorded, there was a moment where a UPS delivery person crossed behind her, far upstage, in the back corner. It was something we didn't notice until later. We noticed it, though, during dress rehearsal. As the live Jillian did her dance, in perfect synch with video Jillian, everything seemed normal. 

Until the shadow of a human in the farthest back corner of the video appeared. But that figure was not there in our real space. And it sent chills down my spine. I audibly gasped at seeing it.  A happy, horrifying accident in art. 

Since then I've been drawn in by this idea that a piece of media available to everyone would show you - and only you - something different. That there's a person in the recording communicating directly to you, and you can't figure out why no one else sees it. 

In this episode, the timestamps of Cat Ballou are real, as are the scenes Cecil describes - up to a point. There is a weird figure in the doorway at the town courthouse. There are shadows of people at the square dance. And if you pause it just right, they appear to be looking toward the camera. (I say that, but it's probably only because I stared at the still screen for several minutes). 

Of course, the final sequence of Cat Ballou described in this episode is fictitious, but the man with the shovel is not. He literally is just an extra in that particular scene, but there's something sinister about his movement forward, and the hat hanging low over his face. I can't not imagine he's about to do something inexplicable. 

Anyway, Cecil's right. Cat Ballou doesn't really hold up, in terms of race and gender, but Lee Marvin and Jane Fonda are charming as hell. Plus, for real: Nat King Cole as a balladeer. I'm here for it. 

-Jeffrey Cranor
August 20, 2021