His name is Ariel A. Winthrop. And you know him very well. His name doesn’t tell you anything, however. You would also be unable to remember his face and even less his voice: he never spoke. Yet you have already seen it. Saw again. And reviewed again. In the cinema, on television, in a hundred films, all classics, successes, cult films. Comedies, action films, dramas, horror, children’s cinema, there is not a genre he has not explored. Ariel A. Winthrop is the king of appearances, the emperor of the fleeting, the champion of the ephemeral. All the big names in Hollywood have hired him. Ariel A. Winthrop was an extra. Or rather THE extra.
Apprentice actor neither talented nor promising, the narrator of “Star”, novel by Guillaume Poix, discovers Ariel A. Winthrop via the French actress Nicole Garcia, an evening when the excessive consumption of americano loosens the tongues and brings memories to the surface . Nicole Garcia shot for and with Ariel A. Winthrop, in the only film he has ever made and where he plays the leading role with the actress. This movie is called “Miss None” and you may not know it: Ariel A. Winthrop burned the only copy of it.
Cover of the book “Star” by Guillaume Poix. [Editions Verticales-Gallimard]
Wrestling with Brad Pitt in “Fight Club”
We find the scenes in which Ariel A. Winthrop starred, carefully listed by the narrator in “Star”: receiving a slap from Gena Rowlands in “Gloria” by John Cassavetes. Fighting with Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s “Fight Club”. Wave his beret in “New York, New York” by Martin Scorsese. Jog in “American Beauty” by Sam Mendes. Punch Harrison Ford in Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. Capturing Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in “Mom, I Missed the Plane!” by Chris Columbus. Putting out a cigarette in “Dirty Dancing” by Emile Ardolino. The list is long.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he was everywhere. Even at Marguerite Duras during a trip to France. To follow Ariel A. Winthrop is to leaf through the cinema encyclopedia or the catalog of the perfect extra.
Is he still alive?
Of Ariel A. Winthrop, we only know of an interview that appeared in the New York Times. A few words about his work before disappearing forever. Is he still alive? Where does he live? Why did he destroy his only feature film? The narrator of “Star” goes in search of this comet and his story is as much a detective novel as a love letter. Love of cinema and of those who make it exist every day, from the most modest extra to the great director.
“Star” is not a book like the others. He was first born in the theatre, on the stage of the Grütli in Geneva. A project led by actresses who are film fans. There was a play called “Miss None”. Like the famous film disappeared. We were also looking for Ariel A. Winthrop with the complicity of actress Nicole Garcia. We talked about cinema, actress, hair, gait, look and mystery. The room has become a book. Is it a novel, an investigation, a mystification, the start of a future classic of cinema? If you got the shivers watching David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, don’t miss this book.
Thierry Sartoretti/aq
Guillaume Poix, “Star”, Vertical editions