Background
Insignificance was originally a play, written by Terry Johnson and performed at the Royal Court in 1982, with Judy Davis as The Actress. The seed for Johnson's play was his having read that an autographed photograph of Einstein was found amongst Marilyn Monroe's possessions upon her death. The idea of them meeting piqued his interest, and he wrote what became a meditation on the nature of fame. "It was always meant to be a play about the era, about fame...what these people stood for, the fact that this was different from what they are." He was interested in exploring the differences between who these people really were, as opposed to what qualities others assumed or imbued them with. Johnson acknowledges that there are "lots of little cheats" in the play, mostly to do with exactly where and when The Seven Year Itch was filmed, and the timing of Marilyn's marriage to Joe DiMaggio. Einstein was also never called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, "but," he said, "had it gone on longer, I can see that as having been a big possibility. He was there in spirit, as it were."
Roeg saw the play and felt it "might be a tool to use. An incident came up in my own life and I thought, 'Good God, nobody knows a damn thing about anyone.' That was the premise that started me thinking about the piece again." Roeg notes that Insignificance is usually talked about as a meeting between Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein, but what moved him was the pain of the problems between The Actress and The Ballplayer, who are married but seem to know nothing about each other. Insignificance would become his first film adapted from a play.
Roeg asked Johnson to work on the screenplay, which at first meant simply reducing the play to approximately 90 minutes as opposed to two hours, but then Roeg began making suggestions which would expand the screenplay and include flashbacks to the characters histories, and flashforwards of imagination. His suggestions inspired Johnson to focus on a deeper development of the characters, while Roeg himself began to imagine how the film could open then play spatially as well as laterally. "He opened it backwards," Johnson said.
Read more about this topic: Insignificance (film)
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