the figurant doctrine: who is heard versus merely seen · S2
figurants the wraith says they're called, these surreally mute background presences whose presence really revealed that the camera, like any eye, has a perceptual corner, a triage of who's important enough to be seen and heard v. just seen
Context
The theme's master statement, delivered as film theory by a ghost: every frame, like every eye, silently triages the world into those worth hearing and those relegated to mute human furniture at the edge — the figurants, whose mouths move without sound. And the horror the wraith confesses is that a person can live an entire life as one, furniture at the periphery of the very eyes closest to him, with no way to break out: a figurant who stands up and cries for attention only gets restrained as a choking hazard. No possible voice, no possible focus — the encaged self as a background extra in its own life. [sweep · shared-ground entertainment-self film-optics]