Agnieszka Kurant: Cutaways

Fruit of a partnership with awarded cinema editor Walter Murch (“Apocalypse Now”, “The Godfather”), Cutaways, by Polish Agnieszka Kurant (b. 1978, Lodz), brings to the screen the invisible universe of characters that, despite conceived and filmed for certain cinematographic productions, were completely excluded from the final cutting. For her film, the artist chose three of such omitted supporting characters from cult movies by Kubrick, Tarantino and Sarafian.

Kurant’s conceptual work deals with complex concepts such as virtual capital and immaterial work to explore abstract phenomena that generate concrete impact in politics, economy and culture. With Cutaways (2013, 23 minutes) she approaches phantom characters that, considered redundant or superfluous by editors, cease to exist in their own narratives. They leave no trace behind in their own histories, despite strangely continuing to belong in their universe.

Cutaways portraits the reencounter of three characters from distinct productions, as if they came to life and were sharing the same narrative limbo. The plot is based on the original scripts of the movies, and the actors accepted to redo their roles: Charlotte Rampling as the hitchhiker from “Vanishing Point” (by Richard C. Sarafian, 1971); Abe Vigoda as the protagonist’s lawyer and best friend from The Conversation (by Francis Ford Coppola, 1974); and Dick Miller as the junk yard owner from Pulp Fiction (by Quentin Tarantino, 1994).

A sequence of Hollywood names closes the projection, informing that several other actors and actresses have also interpreted phantom characters during their careers. The typography in which each name appears is that of the original movie poster, as if Kurant proposed a guessing game, leaving clues for us to find out from which titles they where cut off.