UT offers exhibit on "Making Movies"

AUSTIN (KXAN) - In a corner of a huge exhibit space in the University of Texas Harry Ransom Center , a glass case shows off a grisly artifact.

It's mockup of actor Robert de Niro, his chest, neck, face and head, sliced to ribbons and stitched back together. The gruesome image was part of a collaborative effort behind the production of the 1994 version of Frankenstein, and the combined work of artists, makeup specialists and special effects masters that created it is a perfect example of the kind of cooperation and consultation that lies behind all great movies. The Ransom Center's "Making Movies" exhibit includes over 350 items that testify to such work.

Most of us, for example, know that movies have producers, but less obvious is just exactly what producers do. Well, in the past, one thing that was required of them was meticulous attention to the words that were uttered in their films.

Peering into a glass display case at the exhibit, curator Steve Wilson examines excerpts from the Production Code that once governed such matters.

"We have the list of words that are not allowed to be used in the film and a lot of these words are things that you would expect to find," said Wilson. "But then there are also some that have changed over time, such as 'Hold on to your hat.'"

Wilson pauses as he hovers over the glass.

"I don't get that one," he laughs. "I don't know. I'm trying to imagine what that could refer to, and I just don't know."

The list includes bum and bloody, words that were not a problem in the U.S., but forbidden in England. Then there is damn, a word forbidden in both countries until producer David O. Selznick successfully petitioned the powers that be to allow Clark Gabel, as Rhett Butler to say, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," in Gone with the Wind.

By the 1960's, cultural changes opened the floodgates in films such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

"What happened was that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was really the last straw for the production code and what came out of this was the rating system that we have now. Rather than have a set of rules and a set of guidelines for what you cannot do in a film, it came to pass that you could make any kind of film you wanted, but the rating system would warn the audience about what was contained in that film.

Then there is the costume designer. Wilson surveys a gown worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.
"Yes, she really did have an 18-inch waist and she was this tiny," he observed.

The gown was thrust upon O'Hara by Butler after he realizes she is still in love with Ashley Wilkes.

"This helps move the story along because of the look of the costume," said Wilson. It reminds me of a saloon girl that would be very familiar to movie goers at the time from westerns and whatnot. This is something that a 'loose' woman would wear and that is part of what's going on in the story.

In this way, the costume designer, beyond simply clothing actors in period wear, offers them a weapon in the arsenal used to bring a character to life.

Even the screenplay is open to collaboration. Take Gloria Swanson's famous line from Sunset Boulevard: "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup." The exhibit includes Swanson's actual script with notes in her own hand.

"The original line is, 'I'm ready for the closeup,'" said Wilson, "but she personalized it and changed it to my closeup and I think it adds quite a bit; it's a whole different line. I'm sure didn't do any of these changes without (writer-dirctor) Billy Wilder's approval, but that's Gloria's handwriting."

So does collaboration work? The films included in "Making Movies" claimed a total of 117 Academy Awards and eight of them earned "Best Picture" accolades. And that, Dear Scarlett, is something to give a damn about.