, by Prof JD Rhodes (MMLL, 海角社区) and Dr Elena Gorfinkel (Film Studies, King鈥檚 College London), was published by Fordham Press on 4 March. The spoke to Prof Rhodes in February about Joanna Hogg鈥檚 film Autobiografia di una Borsetta, which was inspired by Rhodes鈥� and Gorfinkel鈥檚 book.
We asked Prof Rhodes to explain where The Prop sits in his research agenda and what it can explain about the world of cinema production. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Your books have gone from the city [Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini鈥檚 Rome (2007)] to the house [Spectacle of Property: The House in American Film (2017)] to the prop. Are we going to get any smaller?
I鈥檓 actually scaling back up 鈥� my next book is about Rome, so I鈥檓 going back to the beginning of my career. But the prop actually is, funnily enough, lurking. One of the first instances of using that term in my own work was in thinking about fascism and its instrumentalisation of objects, so they鈥檙e connected in a way. So yes, I鈥檝e been scaling down 鈥� but actually as a way of getting to a broader theoretical plane. I鈥檓 going to scale back up in the next book, but in a much more located space, which is just Rome.
This book talks about critiques of property and there鈥檚 this intriguing term 鈥� 鈥榩rop value鈥�.
That is a playfully proposed term that would take its place alongside the familiar Marxist theoretical categories of use value and exchange value, and also just the question of value itself. We were trying to think about the way that many props are commodities: either they鈥檝e been purchased from the world of pre-existing commodities or they鈥檝e been produced for the film, by labour, and therefore they definitely have a use value in the production 鈥� but afterwards they鈥檙e sort of used up. Although their life could be extended on an auction market or a secondary market or something.
Value is always a fiction in some ways, or a mediation of things, and [props] somehow seemed not really to fit inside a category of absolute exchange value or absolute use value, so we playfully proposed this category of prop value, which is always dancing around those categories. I think the prop in some way can鈥檛 be thought outside of, or away from, the commodity, but it doesn鈥檛 necessarily obey the typical patterns of behaviour that the commodity does.
Were there any particular films that you were thinking of?
In that chapter we talk a lot about this Minelli film called The Bad and the Beautiful. It鈥檚 a meta-film that鈥檚 sort of about Hollywood film production, and there鈥檚 this hilarious moment where this woman, who鈥檚 the wife of the screenwriter, is overawed by the prop department, and she says, 鈥淥h my goodness, I鈥檝e never seen such silver鈥� 鈥� she鈥檚 looking at the table that鈥檚 been set 鈥� 鈥渘ot even in Richmond.鈥� And you鈥檙e like, well, wait, why is silverware, why is flatware, so interesting? It is just silverware that has obviously been purchased by the property department to be used and re-used in film productions 鈥� that鈥檚 all of course inside the fictional world of the film 鈥� and then those props themselves probably were just parts of that studio鈥檚 property department that are doing double duty, pretending to be the props that they really are. We were trying to get at that strange, stupefied reaction to what is just a commodity in some way, but there鈥檚 something about the commodity鈥檚 lamination inside the film鈥檚 surface that produces this extra frisson of excitement, or fetishism.
Do you think of props as in the same category as houses?
Well, they鈥檙e maybe the smallest discrete units of domestic ownership. I think the book, while it鈥檚 about film, maybe also asks us to think about the curation of our own object-worlds and how they mediate or symbolise our own unconfessed investments in private property and ownership. And I think that鈥檚 even true in, say, rented accommodations, where the way in which you possess something that doesn鈥檛 belong to you is to decorate it, or to install your belongings in it in a way that seems to symbolise either a way of life, a style of living, or a particular attitude towards ownership. It鈥檚 a kind of pseudo-ownership, in a way.
But then all of that belies the fundamental condition of property, which I talk about in my book that I published in 2017, which is that 鈥� in this I鈥檓 borrowing someone else鈥檚 phrase 鈥� for property to be property, it has to be alienable. I think property is always an anxious category, because it could not belong to you. It鈥檚 like being alive: you could also be dead. So owning something means you might not own it. Also, we of course know that other living beings have been owned, and continue to be, and so it鈥檚 a terrifying category as well, and probably one of the most dominating modalities of human existence 鈥� the question of ownership, private ownership.
And then, as you said, when you put that on film it becomes encased in this extra layer of spectacle.
It鈥檚 encased and spectacularised, but also I think the spectacularisation is always anxious, and more informative than it might want to be, if you but look at it from that sort of perspective.
Is theatre a different environment for property?
I think so. We borrowed a bit from the important work that鈥檚 been done on the props in theatre. There鈥檚 a really good book by a guy named Andrew Sofer that鈥檚 called The Stage Life of Props. I guess for us there鈥檚 this ontological condition of film, which is that you can鈥檛 touch or have anything that鈥檚 on the screen. So in terms of the possessiveness that props often incite 鈥� you could, if you wanted to, race onto the stage and grab something 鈥� the film, like the prop, kind of says, 鈥楲ook, but don鈥檛 touch.鈥�
Also, I think there鈥檚 something different in a lot of film production in terms of scale: just the sheer amassing and enumeration of props that film can afford itself, or that a particular type of film can afford itself. Not everything can be dragged onto stage, but the camera can be dragged to face anything and everything. And in that sense, there鈥檚 a greater degree, or risk, of instrumentality in the interface between the camera and the world. We make the playful, provocative suggestion that the world is the film鈥檚 prop. If there鈥檚 a chair in a park, it鈥檚 just minding its own business, being a chair. But if you really wanted to set a film there, that chair would suddenly be converted into having a double life that鈥檚 doubly instrumental or it鈥檚 doubly heteronomous, in which it not only exists so as to support a human bottom but it also has to support the representation of that sitting. That, I think, puts you in a different category, mediatically, from theatre. Cinema learns from theatre and it absorbs all the lessons that theatre has taught itself about props, and I think it magnifies them.
I鈥檓 trying to think about the differences between this and use value and exchange value, because some film props do have an incredible exchange value.
Yeah, they do, all the time. I mean, some directors 鈥� apparently Spielberg repurchased the whip from Indiana Jones on the auction market. But there we鈥檙e interested in the mystification of the increase in value, because it鈥檚 obviously not useful as a whip. There鈥檚 no market that I know of in, let鈥檚 say, three-dimensional real-world artefacts that have been represented in painting. Now, you could imagine that might be the case; if they weren鈥檛 housed in the Casa Morandi in Bologna, maybe the little pots and cups that he painted obsessively over and over could fetch a high price at auction. The cinematic prop鈥檚 exchange value would be predicated on almost a kind of religious fascination that we would associate with the relic, maybe, which has been touched by a holy person. This is like the ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz, for instance.
I would say in many cases, [props] bend back and obey the law of the commodity. But I think in other cases there鈥檚 a bit of an escape 鈥� it doesn鈥檛 mean that they escape from the larger project and condition of capital, but we were just interested in seeing what would happen if we decided that they don鈥檛 fit neatly into these categories [of use and exchange value]. Because they鈥檙e kind of tools, in which case they absolutely have use value, and sometimes they literally are tools. If you see a film with someone typing on a typewriter, it鈥檚 literalising its function there as an instrument of labour. I think the prop is always related to the question of labour.
In that people have to work to make it?
They have to work to make it and it鈥檚 used by actors to mediate and make possible their own labour, and the goes into that. So they鈥檙e products of labour, they鈥檙e instruments of labour, they bring into view often the unsung labours of people who are sort of below the line, the production team, and make that visible in some way 鈥� but it鈥檚 visibly invisible, it鈥檚 really there but no one鈥檚 asking you to think about it. I think once you start looking at any discrete element of a film production process, you start thinking about how it got there and who put it there and what is the complexity of this labour process.
In a way, those objects are un-becoming commodities. They鈥檙e going from a commodity to a specific object by being in a film.
Depending on what they are. A can of Coke is a can of Coke. Probably, if you need to have it in the film, you just go buy it. You won鈥檛 make a fake one. Our book does appear as a fake prop in the film by Joanna Hogg [] 鈥� we wanted her to blurb the book, so we sent it to her in the summer, by that time there was a cover design, she read it and decided she wanted to make a film kind of inspired by it, and then they fabricated a fake version of the prop. They wrapped our cover around a crossword puzzle book and you see it fleetingly on the table of this house in Tuscany. I think that鈥檚 surely 鈥� whatever kind of a first that is, it鈥檚 a kind of first where a book about the prop appears as itself but via an artificial version of itself before it existed in the world.
Are those more interesting to you, those props that don鈥檛 have a use value outside of the film?
I think they point more towards artisanal labour, so in a sense they almost summon a world of pre-capitalist material production. There鈥檚 a very famous prop storeroom near Cinecitt脿 which services the film world, but also the theatre and the opera world, and there鈥檚 a whole row, for example, of just swords. They start with the earliest form of a sword and they end with more like eighteenth-century fencing swords. You go into a little studio or laboratory and they鈥檙e making chain mail in this very artisanal way. So the mode of production is actually mirroring the period to which the prop belongs: there鈥檚 a kind of medieval labour that is going on in this prop production in the storeroom.
That鈥檚 kind of interesting because it points to the way that film is one of the most modern media, often compared to Fordism in terms of the division of labour and its industrialised mode of production, but inside that organisation are these storerooms which actually harken back to pre-capitalist modes of production. And that鈥檚 why I think the 鈥榮tudio鈥� is an interesting term, because we think back to the artist鈥檚 studio, the studio of someone like Caravaggio, where there鈥檚 a kind of artisanal mode of production that is pocketed inside this bigger industrial machine that itself is then itself imbricated in a world of industrial manufacture.
What鈥檚 the most interesting prop in a film for you?
I鈥檓 kind of interested in fake paintings. I lecture on this, actually 鈥� there鈥檚 a Morandi, and I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 a real Morandi, that you see in the background, initially, in this important scene in Fellini鈥檚 La dolce vita, which is a very complex film that is incredibly studied but also has the air of being incredibly carefree. You kind of glimpse it in the background, behind the characters鈥� heads, and an observing, cultured spectator would think, 鈥業 think I saw a Morandi in the background鈥� 鈥� but then a few beats later, a character鈥檚 attention is drawn to it and they鈥檙e like, 鈥楢h, Morandi! Nothing is left to chance. It鈥檚 a perfect registration of the world. Every stroke is considered.鈥� Something to that effect. And suddenly this thing that had been more incidental and propping up a fictional world becomes an allegory of Fellini鈥檚 mode of production itself. And then it鈥檚 interesting to me that it鈥檚 also, obviously, yet another work of art. So you鈥檝e got this sort of mise en ab卯me. I think that scene tells, in miniature, the dynamic of the prop that maybe we鈥檙e not supposed to look at, and then the prop that is demanding to be acknowledged, and I think that undecidability is interestingly at the heart of the project.
