In a fascinating, if theory-heavy, article in the latest issue of the Bright Lights Film Journal, Kevin L. Ferguson poses a question that we're pretty sure has never occurred to anyone else: why isn't there more wallpaper in movies? After all, he says, "Wallpaper is a cut-rate imitation of reality based on an equation of repetition and pattern, but so is Hollywood." Ferguson speculates that audiences know that "two fakes don't make a real", and that wallpaper, being detailed, time-consuming and expensive, makes the filmic world more real, and necessitates that every part of the frame becomes important -- a sacrifice many viewers aren't willing to make. While contrasting the importance, both descriptive and symbolic, of wallpaper in literature with its near-invisibility in film, Ferguson cites a handful of movies where wallpaper was an important element -- among them early Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy shorts, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, My Fair Lady and the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races. It's an interesting read, but we have to ask: why no Barton Fink?
