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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - The productivity of the obsolete - about the recycling strategy of Hollywood outtakes
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Projects & Abstracts
2011-10-01
2022-12-11
2011-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Sebastian Kuhn
2011/10/01
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
2036-461X
16-17
en
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - The productivity of the obsolete - about the recycling strategy of Hollywood outtakes
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/19378/17248
11
THE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE OBSOLETE – ABOUT THE RECYCLING
STRATEGY OF HOLLYWOOD OUTTAKES1
Sebastian Kuhn / Ph.D. Thesis Project2
Ruhr-Universität Bochum




Introduction
   Whereas individual film artists like Morgan Fisher used to snoop around for footage in the back
lots of film studios quite on their own, film companies themselves are now systematically pick-
ing up the leftovers from their finished productions. This dissertation explores the recycling strat-
egy of published Hollywood outtakes derived from this pool of audiovisual material once con-
sidered obsolete. I examine this strategy through one central question: what components consti-
tute the outtakes’ appeal to the spectator, who sometimes finds them even more entertaining than
the movie itself?3 In order to answer this question, a heuristic approach to this yet unexplored type
of paratext has been chosen: a comparison between Hollywood outtakes and the private family
film or home video.


Hollywood’s family archive
   Since the end of the 1970s, the Hollywood industry has been presenting two to three-minute
compilations of outtakes to a broad public audience. They are sometimes situated at the end cred-
its of comedies or comedy-like blockbusters, and often are part of their sales promotional bonus
materials on DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases. Even though chosen because of its leitmotiv, the so-
called blooper, which denotes an embarrassing faux pas happening in front of the running cam-
era, Hollywood outtakes – or blooper reels, respectively gag reels as they are entitled – are not
primarily about evoking malicious joy or about the seemingly given proof that professional film
making is not always running perfect. Their appeal mainly derives from Hollywood stars being
caught in authentic and intimate situations.4 According to Stephen Lowry, the audience is pas-
sionate about getting to know who the film star really is.5 Hence, outtakes which feature unex-
pected events forcing the star to act spontaneously, respond to the audience’s passion in a unique
way: a naughty Ben Stiller sticking out his tongue towards the camera during the shooting of
Along Came Polly (John Hamburg, 2004); Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor turning a failed
lip-sync scene into a crazy playback show (Moulin Rouge!, Baz Luhrmann, 2001); Jim Carrey
asking Morgan Freeman for a dance after the older actor forgot his line (Bruce Almighty, Tom
Shadyac, 2003) – these impressions cause laughter with, not about the stars and generate a bond
between the recipient and the performers. More intensely than the making-ofs outtake clips cre-
ate the utopian idea of a film set as a place where everyone loves working with each other. These
documentary clips give the viewer the impression that the actors are a family-like team – at least

CINÉMA & CIE, vol. XI, no. 16-17, Spring-Fall 2011                                               165
SEBASTIAN KUHN

during the film shoot. In this way, Roger Odin’s notes about the private family film, can be
applied to Hollywood outtakes:

  Just like family photo albums, private family films [or family home videos, S.K.] are filled
  with happiness, joy of life and the pleasure of being together. There is probably no other kind
  of film that provides such an omnipresent smile and laughter. […] The private family film is
  governed by the motherly fantasy of a happy family, representing a society without problems,
  a mythical society.6

  When we try to analyze and understand the use of outtakes published by the film industry, we
need to think of them as the archive of a mythical Hollywood family. And even though one has
to compare the blooper reels to other paratexts such as the trailer or the making-of-film or to
experimental found footage films, a comparison to the private family film seems to be the most
suitable. With the help of the research done in this field,7 we can not only explore the affective
potential of blooper reels and their naive and authentic power, but also their typical reflexive aes-
thetics.


Pre-constructed memories
   In the following, I will briefly illustrate how fruitful this adaptation turned out to be during the
first year of my Ph.D. project. In order to prove that published Hollywood outtakes can be com-
pared to the private family film with regards to their fragmentary form and thus to their reception
function, I will translate Roger Odin’s reception model developed in his article Sur le film de
famille8 into the tripartite relationship structure of outtakes, the actual movie, and their audience.

       Expérience        Diégèse             Film                Indices          Spectateur
       antérieure         mémorielle          [de famille, S.K.]

                                                                                   (Odin 1984, p. 838)
       Hollywood movie     Diegesis          Hollywood            Indications     Spectator
       reception            by memory         outtakes published



  Even though legitimate modifications have been made since this pioneer of academic research
on the private family film published his first observations in the 1980s, the home video has often
been examined in relation to the narrative cinema and has been labeled as being incomplete and
imperfect. The analysis of published outtake clips asks for this kind of comparison to the fiction-
al-narrative film in a similar way. Both share the same origin (the unedited footage), but the clips
are subordinated to the finished film: first, as formerly rejected offcuts and second, as paratexts.
Furthermore, Roger Odin’s interpretation of the main characteristics of the private family film as
phenomena of failure can be applied to the blooper reels and their loosely connected, embarrass-
ing mischances, thus mirroring the cliché of the “badly made” family film. On the contrary, the
incoherent structure of the private family film, seems to be the result of a more unconscious
action.9 But in both cases, the spectator is confronted with diegetic fragments, even though this
commonality derives from different preconditions. While in the Hollywood outtakes the frag-

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ments are “wrong” components in the construction of an enclosed narrative-fictional universe, in
the private family film the fragments have been created through the amateurish staging of a fam-
ily’s every day-life. The latter are caused by seven parameters10 which can also be applied to
Hollywood outtakes: 1. the text’s openness, which pulls the recipient into the given situations in
medias res; 2. an indifference towards spatial as well as 3. temporal coherence; 4. a general lack
of narrative patterns in favor of a simple episodic structure; 5. false continuity concerning the
microstructure; 6. unstableness of the image due to whip zooms and a wiggling camera; 7. mul-
tiple camera addressings. According to Roger Odin, these fragments are not considered disturb-
ing to the family when it watches private movies. The family members do not find them irritat-
ing as they participated in the recorded events.11 Similarly, when the blooper reel viewer is watch-
ing the fragmentary scenes torn out of a spatial and temporal suture, he does not feel confused,
either. Even though he did not take part in the shooting of the events represented in the outtakes,
he remembers another super-coherent story, which he was privileged to experience: that of the
film shown before. But it is less the actual movie narration than the personal memory of this jour-
ney through the story-world that is being reactivated by the fragments serving as “indices”:12
“[C]e qui […] permet [au film de famille] d’être regardé avec plaisir […], c’est la pauvreté diégé-
tique de ses images”.13 And Odin continues:

  Moins les images du film de famille s’imposent au spectateur comme une structure diégéti-
  que cohérente et constituée, moins il y a de chance pour que les bribes de diégèse produites
  par le film entrent en conflit avec la diégèse mémorielle du spectateur, et plus la construc-
  tion de la diégèse a des chances de se plier a cette “implacable force de répétition qui habi-
  te le désir”, c’est à dire à s’identifier avec l’image qu’il se fait de l’expérience antérieure
  vécue.14

   In order to activate the recipient’s delight in a retrospective viewing of the movie, the blooper
reels have to refer to those takes integrated in the actual film, and preferably in the same chrono-
logical order in which the viewer watched them before. In addition, there shouldn’t be any con-
flict-laden images or tonal derivations. Under these conditions, the potential of these outtakes is
set free: they can revalue the remembered images and idealize the precedent film experience.
Perhaps one did not find Jim Carrey that amusing in the comedy Bruce Almighty, but when see-
ing another take of the same scene in which he is adding some improvisations, and his partner
Morgan Freeman cannot withhold his laughter, then one might think: “Ah, Jim Carrey was real-
ly funny in that movie!”


Conclusion
   Using comparative approaches, this dissertation seeks to explore the concept behind the recy-
cling of Hollywood outtakes. With the help of the reception model, developed by Roger Odin for
the private family film, the closely intertwined relationship between outtakes, the actual movie,
and their audience can be summarized as follows: Hollywood outtakes function as a virtual mem-
ory store not only of the profilmic, but also of the diegetic reality of a film. Like private family
films, which reactivate and modify preceding occurrences in a nostalgic way through the selec-
tion of certain moments, Hollywood outtakes improve the actual movie and transform it into a
valuable (movie) event. And when directly connected to the movie, they do not only modify these
memories, but also anticipate and undermine the development of an autonomous idea of the film.

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SEBASTIAN KUHN

1     Working title.
2     Supervisor: Prof. Vinzenz Hediger.
3     Cf. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorika/357951223/, last visit 9 September 2011.
4     Cf. Bernard Weinraub, “Turning Bloopers Into Comedies of Errors,” in New York Times, November 30,
      2001, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEFDE153DF933A05752C1A9679C8B63,
      last visit 9 September 2011.
5     Cf. Stephen Lowry, “Stars und Images. Theoretische Perspektiven auf Filmstars,” in montage/av, no. 11,
      1997, p. 14.
6     Roger Odin, Kino “mit klopfendem Herzen”: Anmerkungen zu den Emotionen im Familienfilm, in
      Matthias Brütsch (ed.), Kinogefühle, Emotionalität und Film, Schüren, Marburg 2005, p. 112 (my trans-
      lation).
7     E.g. Roger Odin, Kino “mit klopfendem Herzen”, cit.; Alexandra Schneider, Die Stars sind wir:
      Heimkino als filmische Praxis, Schüren, Marburg 2004.
8     Roger Odin, Sur le film de famille, in Klaus Oehler (ed.), Zeichen und Realität: Akten des 3. Semiot.
      Kolloquiums d. Dt. Ges. für Semiotik e. V. (Hamburg 1981), Stauffenberg, Tübingen 1984, pp. 833-841.
9     Cf. Alexandra Schneider, Die Stars sind wir, cit.
10    Cf. Roger Odin, Sur le film de famille, cit., pp. 834-835.
11    Idem, p. 837.
12    Idem, p. 838.
13    Ibidem.
14    Ibidem.




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