Ben Carré, 1942

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Ben Carré arrived at his studio in the Hollywood hills, eager to complete the colossal project that was keeping him awake at night. In his brief moments of sleep, he dreamed of finishing out the contract he had signed with MGM studios. His craft was a rare one, and even the latest technologies could not rival what this man could produce. He was a genius with a blank canvas, making spaces profitable so that movies could be filmed. He set down his satchel and picked up his long ruler and pencil. A few days earlier, a French journalist had come to interview him.

Benjamin Carré, known to Hollywood and to America simply as Ben, was a dramaturge – though this is perhaps not the term that one might immediately associate with the towering architectural drawings and broad lines Ben traced onto his immense canvases. Outside the Hollywood enclave, very few people knew what the work of a scenographer entailed – yet before he was called a dramaturge, Ben Carré was one of America’s pre-eminent scenographers. Dramaturgy is defined, in the staging of a theatre text, as an interpretation of this text, in terms not only of the locale but also of the sequence, the scenery, the lines uttered and the composite whole that is formed. In the play that is produced, actors, light, sounds and, of course, scenography all play a role in the creation of an overall meaning, which they contribute to producing, each at their own level, and which, at the same time, extends beyond their own actions. Scenography plays a particular role because it is simultaneously a vector of meaning, a space for expression of the dramaturgy, and an overall setting that plays host to all the other signs and symbols making up the representation. Quite straightforward, wouldn’t you agree? Perhaps not.

Ben Carré focused his mind. He visualised his lines and his stagecraft. It had been over fifteen years since his arrival in the United States, when he began working for MGM studios. Ben Carré tried to imagine the forthcoming feature film for which he was sketching the scenography, letting it pour from his mind onto the blank page. The director knew that he would be able to rely on the universe that Ben Carré would mould alongside him; a world that could be described in aesthetic terms, or in terms of torment and obsession, carrying over from feature to feature until it formed a signature style. These elements that made up an artistic identity were defined with precision by the scenographer – and Ben Carré was the scenographer. It all started with the search for a principle: “This may be very quickly defined, with a sketch that will summarise what the space will become; that is to say, the broad shapes, the prominent lines, the dimensions. This principle unfolds over time, and corresponds, mutatis mutandis, to the definition of a problem, a point of tension, which will, in turn, form the dramaturgical axis of the production,” the scenographer told the journalist. Ben Carré analysed his sketch, seeking this perfect tension between its geometry and visual organisation. “There is always geometrical momentum where I can build, construct...” Ben Carré explained. The final aspect was the addition of the real, which he always anticipated with a certain level of suspicion: of course, the objects added to the set could be from the real world, but they would sit alongside other items that had been designed, modified or unmade for the stage.

Ben Carré had an instinctive feel for the membranes, curtains or walls that “create off-screen areas, strata between what we see and what we do not see, borders with different thicknesses, materials between the opaque and the transparent. A space becomes an object of fantasy when we know that a body is there; we guess it, we perceive it, more than we see it.” The journalist noted these words in his pad, feeling a swell of pride in his compatriot’s work. Ben Carré traced a final line. His New York backdrop for the next MGM feature would soon be ready. His sketches were taking shape, and coming to life.

Here was a man impassioned, obsessed with the interplay of space and situation – and his name was Ben Carré!

Alan Alfredo Geday