The Pitch

The Pitch from 1998 lasts about five minutes – the entire length of a single 35mm spool, its only movement that of a camera zooming out; in it, we see Lewis himself in the middle of the picture read a text in which he tells the story of the ‘extras’, those unnamed armies of so-called supernumeraries without whom thousands of films would appear desperately empty. As the camera zooms out, Lewis himself is reduced to an extra among extras.The Pitch from 1998 lasts about five minutes – the entire length of a single 35mm spool, its only movement that of a camera zooming out; in it, we see Lewis himself in the middle of the picture read a text in which he tells the story of the...