Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (2019) adapted from Louisa May Alcott’s popular novel published in 1868, takes on the story of the four March sisters and the adventures that they share together. While the spotlight is focused on the March siblings and their ups and downs with one another, none of this would be possible without the minor characters featured throughout the film. The background extras presented in Little Women not only help drive the story forward, but are also used to give the movie a more realistic and practical feel- even if it is set in the 1860’s. A noteworthy example of this would be the ballroom dancers at the ball which Amy and Laurie attend. As said by Straw, “Extras and bit players in film form part of what Alex Woloch, writing of minor characters in literature, calls a ‘distributed field of attention’. Upon this field, attention may follow the dehumanized lines of graphic contiguity or direct itself, anthropocentrically, towards human faces (Straw, p.125)”. At times it may seem difficult to keep the focus on Amy and Laurie due to the amount of character space that is taken up, but for good reason. The ballroom dancers play a key role in how Amy and Laurie interact with each other, thus adding to the storyline.
Upon Laurie entering the ballroom, he slouches over in a chair with two dancers next to him- presumably flirting with him as they laugh and smile at his words. Once Amy notices Laurie, she informs him of how upset she is that he left her waiting for over an hour. Even worse, he is not only drunk, but paying attention to other women over her. The pair hash it out with one another as the attendees continue dancing without notice of the conflict between Amy and the man she secretly loves. This goes to show that everyone is in their own world, and that their fight is not as bad as it seems. However, once Laurie decides he no longer wants to hear Amy’s complaints, he causes a scene, making everyone in the room look their way. Hundreds of people stare and gawk, each of them silently judging the conversion which they did not hear, but can only imagine. Each dancer in the hall helps to reflect not only Amy’s changed mood, but also further her and Laurie’s narrative and emotions towards one another.
Works Cited:
Gerwig, Greta, director. Little Women. Columbia Pictures, 2019.
Straw, Will. Scales of presence: Bess Flowers and the Hollywood extra, vol. 52, no. 1, 2011, p. 125. Thompson Rivers University Library, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjq061
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