Miranda July teamed up with photographer Roe Etheridge to direct this cinematic photo essay in Vice.
In her charmingly awkward style, July introduces the piece with a note apparently penned by an angst-ridden teen: “Dear Julie, It seems like I am forever stuck in the background, watching other people say and do all the things I feel inside. One day I’m gonna surprise everyone with my talents. They will be laughing and crying and texting me so often that I will be annoyed.”
July and Ethridge proceed to take the overlooked extras from several Hollywood films — in this particular photo Vertigo — isolate them and blow them up full size. Suddenly the lady in Podesta Baldocchi’s floral shop with her camel coat and blue cloche hat — once just a split-second flicker on the screen, a distraction from the real star, James Stewart — seems intensely fascinating.
