What Does Citizen X Mean For Me

For me "Citizen X" (HBO Pictures) is not only about a changing Soviet Union that serves as the backdrop for a psychological thriller, or about a real-life Russian detective and his superior officer who hunted down and captured Andre Chikatilo, the worst serial killer of modern times.

My haydays. Please don't consider dating me based on this photo!

For me, this movie stars not only Steven Rea and Donald Sutherland, not only Jeff DeMunn and Max von Sydow. It also stars me. I had the pleasure of being one of the extras in that movie which was shot in Hungary. And I am in a movie! though just an extra. Actually it is not, "just and extra!" because the extras watch the background, they never see the actors.
Only the background. They don't care how great the actors are.

"Budapest is certainly a little Hollywood of Eastern Europe," said Timothy Marx, one of the producers. "It would probably rank in the top ten American cities for the number of films made."
David Ginsburg, producer of the movie, says that: "The best combination of factors we want to control - the production, predictability of the currency exchange value, crews that we know, production designers, ability to control the production ourselves, residential facilities, hotels, restaurants - the best combination still for us was in Budapest. And the film's budget is around $5.5 million for a two hour movie."
Katheleen Gati - who acted in 12 films in 2 1/2 years of stay in Hungary says that: "In America they don't do enough quality material, but they know how to sell it. The quality of work is excellent here, but they don't know how to promote the work once you've done it.

In Europe is so much history, it is more deeper, more painful... A lot of wars, a lot of tragedies. Much more emotional people... A lot of more color in the work that we do here, that's why I like work here, not because of the money."
This is one of the first American movie about the down trodden in USSR, the losers, the homeless, the drunks and the people who should be in institutions, the slow and the weak and the naive, people who fall through the cracks of the society. In what was called the classless society there were still people who lived in the train stations or on the street. "For that reason it's wonderful to be here," he said, "because those people take on a very important role in the movie even if they were only extras. It's important to see real looking people, they give this movie a sense of a different place for Americans."
How does it feel for an East European actor to be in an American movie? Radu Amzulescu, a Romanian actor, who had the part of Federenko, told me that if you are really gifted you are a citizen of the world; it doesn't matter where you come from, West or East, and the Americans know this very well, for they have very well developed the sense of money. They know very well that they have a very valuable raw material in East Europe.
"During communism the only way of dreaming and being free was through art, and East European artists have always been wonderful."

How it is to be an extra in a movie?
Being an extra asks for endless patience. Just ask Tichy Rezso, an old extras coordinator. "Having to try three or four dresses until you get the right one is so tiresome," he said. "Three, four hair styles. You have to master your temper and do your job to the end."
Eva Baliko, a part time extra, she knows how hard it is to get into a movie. "You need connections. If you are good looking, you have more chances to get in a film. Yesterday, they were searching for faces for Citizen X. I was number 749. You get 3,000 forints (less than $30) a day. My salary at the office is 24,000 a month. If I work as an extra for four days I've made already half of that. You can't live on one salary."
Michael Jackson was in Budapest last summer. On one of a hottest days of the summer, my editor had the inspiration to send me to try to be an extra in Jackson's video. I rushed at the film studio. Nobody of importance was around. I started explaining to a worker what my assignment was about. I was exhausted, with my hair plastered and sticky with sweat, dragging my computer after me, forgot to eat all day. To my surprise he helped me. He said Jackson needed only boys, which left me out. Although I didn't make the Jackson video, I got into a Swedish biography of Albert Nobel. I always dreamed about having romantic dresses, hats and laces, color coordinated umbrellas, gloves, shoes and begs. But after eight hours of dressing and undressing them at the costume try out, I regretted my vanity.
My editor was not satisfied with the information I gathered on the Nobel set; she wanted me to try for a part. By divine grace I was accepted for one - in "Citizen X."
I arrived at the studio on time. In the waiting room people rehearsed their parts from sheets of paper. I was told I would read the part of a TV announcer. Another hopeful colleague asked me to coach her, for she couldn't speak English. She was supposed to say: "For God's sake, you're tracking dirt all over the place. What the hell have you been doing?" I read the text for her.
"'The' not 'thee'?" she asked with eyes dilated, an odd mixture of frustration and eagerness.
"Yes, the, the, the..." I was frustrated because I needed to practice too so I could get a part for my story. "Come on... come! say after me!"
"Forgodseik, yuarteikingthadirtolovethapleis!" the words were escaping her mouth like a rattling machine gun
"Good, but you have to scream here!" I said.
"Ooo! what tha hel, whatthahel... what tha hel heviu binduing! Whatthahelheviubindduing!" the machine gun burst again.
In she went for her try out.
When she came back after screaming and shouting her lines, we asked her what it was all about: "Well, I was lookaying at the picture of my dead son and I was screaming, 'Fatherly God, whaaaa! Oh, my God, but I was good. Anyway, this is for an American movie, called Citizen X, with Donald Sutherland from 'Fellini's Casanova,' with I don't know whom else who is the criminal, and it's about a guy who killed 50 people." It wasn't too revealing.
Next the casting director came out again to ask another woman if she wanted to play the part of a woman who was raped and murdered.
"No. No. I don't want," she shook her head tired.
But to me it sounded okay if it didn't require nudity.
"Nudity?!" the director reasured me: "No way, she has all her clothes on because she is homeless. He picks her up in the railway station and they agree to have sex in the woods for a vodka. He tries to do something, but nothing comes out of it. Then she tries to help him and she... you know... Nothing comes out of this, then she starts to laugh and when she's seeing the knife she is sort of in horror."
So I featured my laugh and expressions of horror for him. He offered to help. He began to explain upon Toshiro Mifune, and he interrupted his speech - do you understand what I'm saying?" as if simple extras couldn't be expected to know. "Of, course I understand. When I don't understand, I'll tell you."
It was irritating to my Eastern European pride. I speak four languages and I'm half blind from so much reading

and movie watching.
Okay, he resumed. The Japanese did this in a baroque style, and he imitated his transition from laughter to awe, "Wowooo!" and "haha!" and "wwwoooowwoo!" and he wants the same from me but not so much. Okay and I did what I could, not too much I think because he said that all the theater is on my face so I don't have to do too much so I didn't do too much. Finally I got the part of a prostitute, not the raped woman.
My editor at the paper was elated. She wanted her own photos to reach the director of Citizen X. My friends descended on me accusing me of meanness when I refused to take them to a shoot. "We will behave. We won't flirt. We want to act too!" they begged.
I started besieging my friends with endless questions about the psychology of prostitutes. Research for my role. Why does a person sell sex? Does she do it only for money? Do some like it with certain partners? When they were children did they have traumas, were they bitten or raped by their parents? Were their mothers doing the same thing? Did they have problems with their boyfriends? Do they have to sustain small children? Maybe they don't know that they will become whores, but gradually, slowly they do it."
I became annoying with my one track mindedness. I had to search out my costume.
The casting director told me that I had to wear something from 1982, a short dress that was out of fashion. Where to find it?
Out of closets my friends gave me a hidden pair of stockings, screaming purple with glassy threads and found some false breasts and a horrifying polyester tight dress and high heels. Bad taste and strong colors! They put all kinds of purple colors on my face. They couldn't recognize me afterwards. We made such a side show as we improved my walking. Swinging my hips, (and everything else,) we tried a pose with a lifted leg and the feet on the back of the other knee, and lift my dress slowly, with caressing finger tips as I tried my come-ons "Hey, who comes to f**k me? Come now!" - I was vamping with my head on my back - "Come who is the one with the hard c**k? I am... Madonna!" We split our sides with laughter. But their eyes glittered...
"Hey Ella you are so stupid! Why you never put make up?" one of them scolded me. "You are a different person now! Always put make up!"
"Why should I put make up off stage?" (Actually I'm a trained actress besides being a journalist, but it's a too long story to tell.)
"You go to your date like that, without make-up?!" she said indignated.
"Yes, darling, without make-up."
"I put make up even if I go just with the garbage out. I put on make up. Just keep on like that, no make up! On top of it go out in trousers! Just in trousers," she said with loving disdain. "Don't come and cry that he cheats on you, all right?"
I was nervous. That was a prostitute from Russia. How could I know what they dressed like in Russia? My friends said I needed artificial eyelashes and long, plastic fingernails. Another investment that would eb painful to make on my meagre income...
The wardrobe people were not at all pleased. My outfit didn't go with the colors of the film so they dressed me like a poor peasant girl, in socks, sandals with chunky heels, a polyester blouse of faded browns and a string of plastic beads. No low neckline, no glamour, no smiles. "Be tired," they said, "forget about Russian passions."

On the great day of shooting I woke up at four in the morning. By six I was in front of the studio. A thin boy with glasses told me the buss supposed to drive us to the shoot site was late. I went and bought some bread and salami with cheese and we ate together, and I told him I was a journalist. I was ashamed of being taken for just an extra.
"I know who you are," the boy said. "I like to be one, just to be in the world of films a tiny little bit."
The bus took us far away, around 20 kilometers outside Budapest to a deserted railway station. The crew showed one by one, Donald Sutherland passed by saying to the translator, "Hello, hello, you changed your underwear?" It was shocking but then I saw that you could see her flowery pants through the hole in her grungy shorts.
They dressed me up, then the hairdresser wanted to put my sidelocks behind my ears, but I fiercely refused and pulled them back, though it wasn't in the film's style. Sutherland came in and grumbled "Oh, my God these Russian whores get on my nerves!" He was on his way towards Rea, who sat on the other make-up seat. I whispered to the make-up lady: to the Irish guy, and I said to the make-up lady, "Oh, how vulgar he can be!" She said,
"This is the way Americans are. The other one - Rea - is Irish. Make sure you don't say by mistake that he is an Englishman, for he makes a scene. And there is another one who is American, but he lives in Paris! Do you get it? It's something rare, everything is upside down!"

Her kind eyes' glitter cracked through her wrinkly - wrinkled face.
"One has to adjust to the actors," smiled costume designer Maria Hruby who received a 1991 Emmy Award for "The Josephine Baker Story". "I know what I want from the actors. I know I have to listen to all their problems and all their soul's sorrows, and then in the end I can slip in my minute question: 'Nevertheless, what size is your feet?' In order to do my job I have to reassure them that of course we have the same views on everything, so that of course we will agree on professional issues too. This is the way a team works."
Sutherland came by again and said teasingly, "What a whore my God!" and he pretended to strangle me when I asked what he meant."Can't you see? I am a woman in trouble!" He shook the cabin with his basoon roaring.
The make-up lady took me to the director: "Gosh, this is great. Great, great!" People were staring at me, I don't know why. Was my make-up was ridiculous? But they weren't laughing, they were staring, assessing my legs, my fake breasts. Then we sat on a bench for they started to go around and shoot the railway station. I exchanged my views on prostitution with the "doctor," my partner in film.
"Well, everybody has a nice story to tell, but actually, they have bad company and bad habits."
"But then why does a man hook up with a prostitute?"
"Because they lack self confidence, they don't know how to talk to a woman, and with a whore you don't have to talk too much and you get to the point fast. And they lead you, so it's good. The other thing is that some married men don't dare to ask their wives for certain things but they know that from a whore you can ask whatever you wish and she'll do everything. This is the matter with the whores."
Then we talked about the Gypsy situation, and he said overwhelmed that it couldn't be improved for it was hopeless.

My illustrious colleagues on the setting

We started to shoot our scene by noon. I was to be fetched up in a car by a John. The director told me that he wants me to get in the car and haggle.
"I can ask him if he wants something special, suggest he should pay more?" I asked.
"Yes, this is a good idea," and he went into titillating details in the general laughter of the bystanders. I went slowly back thinking if this is offensive or not. The doctor told me about their problems in trying to form unions for extras, but our great scene started before he finished.
They asked me through walkie - talkie to move from the car's door close to the doctor and the haggling began. I was flirtatious and he was lavishing compliments about my charms.
He was a very decorous man. A little uncomfortable with his role. We laughed uncontrollable out of nervousness
"This car looks as if being from the time of war."
"How many maybe made love in it. That's why it is so damaged!" It was hilarious to imagine party secretaries having affairs in that gray Volswagen.
The crew started to shake the car, so that it could be seen. They were pushing the car.

My partner was getting busy. I had to lie on the back seat and he sat next to me he sat next to me cramming over me, pressing my chest.
"Be careful sir, you are allowed to touch only my sides!"
"All right, all right," he apologized.
I was choking with laughter.
At the beginning he was dealing only with my pullover, but by the fourth re-take he excused himself: "You know this pullover has such a dusty taste, for it was kept in the store house," and slowly, slowly he started kissing and munching my neck and a nausea came on me. I felt sick. But
then I thought this sickness is actually helpful, for the whores also must be sick up to the brim with scores of sticky licking drills a day. He was saying at a moment,"Oh, little Elli... little Eli." After each retake I was screaming to the crew: "Open the door, open that door!"
It was too warm, too scary.
They were fanning us with a sheet of cardboard. Before each retake they smashed the door back again, and I was again screaming, "Open the door!" and they were opening it again. It was stragely pleasant, to see people passing by, all smiles, saying it was great. Someone through the radio soothed me: "Oh, Ella that gesture with your hand and shoulder, it was so good! Great!" Maybe this was the success. I thought how wreched it was.
Looking through the windowpane at the leering "policemen" who had to pretend that they were watching us I wondered painfully about my poor, poor boyfriend, what does he feel in his very heart knowing of me acting as a whore. What might have been in his soul...
My movie partner reassured me:
"This is not a brothel! This is work. Can't you see, it's just a job! Bring him with you next time," he said.
"There won't be any next time!" I snapped.

Well, there was. A contract is a contract. So on a windy, cold day, a week later, I was patrolling a sidewalk in the ugliest district of Budapest, waiting for "customers." My teeth sounded like a rattling machine gun shot. I was looking too sexy, the director said, "Be tired, tired. These people have no hope. Can you smoke?
"Sure. Give me a cigarette."
"Someone give her a cigarette!"
No movement on behalf of the crew. As if their chattering was the main thing, not the shooting. Not my frozen body or my eagerness to do whatever my director was asking me to do.
"A cigarette please!" he repeated.
No cigarette came out of the pockets that garnished their warm coats.
"They ignore you!" I was teasing him.
"Yes, they don't listen to my commands. I'm the director..." He was smiling patiently. It was so cold and he was teasing me! I was invaded by friendliness. Hollywood was far away at the moment, he wasn't pretentious as he could have been.

The cigarette finally showed up. I puffed awkwardly.
"You can't smoke!" he nodded.
"Well, one has to try everything. I can... if you want me to..."
"You are bulshiting the director?" he said mildly.
"Hey, look at my breasts," I said pushing them with my finger. The plastic breasts made two volcano cones under my shabby blouse.
"Aha. How comes? Fake breasts..." And we laughed together.
"I wrote half of a film script." I said incongruously. I wanted him to tell something encouraging.
"Good. I wrote seven," he said puncturing me.
They shot again and again. "Left leg on the wall... car approaching... step... step... bend at the car window's level... look at him in the eyes... pull the rusty door... get into the car... put your elbow out of the window... Be tired! Be tired!"
They paid me about 30 bucks and a ten times larger amount of daydreams.

7.
Eleven months passed until I saw the film. Last week.
Two days of work, months of worrying of how did it look like and on the screen it was less than a minute! Nothing of the swinging car scene was to be seen. You couldn't even recognize my face
when my John picked me up.
My friend said he recognized my body, and my shy but seductive movements.
He said that I shouldn't be pissed off that my name was not mentioned on the credits. Only those with lines have their work acknowledged.
But maybe they put my name, too. Maybe I'm included in the title. After all I'm an X.

A version of it appeared in the
St. Joseph Gazette in August 1995

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