Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
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Casting<br />
away from Scorsese have been largely undistinguished.<br />
Other close actor-director partnerships have included<br />
Johnny Depp (b. 1963) and Tim Burton (b. 1958),<br />
Toshiro Mifune (1920–1997) and Akira Kurosawa<br />
(1910–1998), Marcello Mastroianni (1924–1996) and<br />
Federico Fellini (1920–1993), Jean-Pierre Leaud<br />
(b. 1944) and François Truffaut (1932–1984), and one<br />
<strong>of</strong> the few in which the director floundered without the<br />
actor: Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg (1894–<br />
1969).<br />
OFF-CASTING AND MISCASTING<br />
One <strong>of</strong> the responses to the relative freedom brought<br />
about by the end <strong>of</strong> the studio system was an increase<br />
in the frequency <strong>of</strong> ‘‘<strong>of</strong>f-casting’’ or ‘‘casting against<br />
type.’’ As studio contracts expired and were not renewed,<br />
stars found themselves free to play a broader range <strong>of</strong><br />
roles. Many <strong>of</strong> the roles taken by Humphrey Bogart<br />
(1899–1957) and James Stewart after 1949 typify successful<br />
<strong>of</strong>f-casting. Bogart, whose tough cynicism was<br />
transformed into heroism in the films <strong>of</strong> his Warner<br />
Bros. star years, was drawn to roles like the grizzled sot<br />
in The African Queen (1951), a part originally intended<br />
for Charles Laughton (1899–1962); the urbane screenwriter<br />
with uncontrollable violent tendencies in In a<br />
Lonely Place (1950); and the paranoid Captain Queeg<br />
in The Caine Mutiny (1954). For James Stewart, playing<br />
driven, neurotic, possibly disturbed loners in the films <strong>of</strong><br />
director Anthony Mann (1907–1967), such as The<br />
Naked Spur (1953) and The Man from Laramie (1955),<br />
moved the fortyish actor away from his ‘‘boyish’’ image<br />
and helped him deepen his emotional range. This change<br />
readied Stewart for the great roles Alfred Hitchcock<br />
(1899–1980) would <strong>of</strong>fer him in Rear Window (1954)<br />
and Vertigo (1958).<br />
For women as well, freedom from studio contracts<br />
meant new opportunities, but these were <strong>of</strong>ten traps, or<br />
perhaps respites from the traps in which actresses were<br />
usually caught. Susan Hayward escaped the insipid love<br />
interests she played in her Twentieth Century Fox contract<br />
movies (David and Bathsheba, 1951; Demetrius and<br />
the Gladiators, 1954), taking challenging and realistic<br />
roles in biopics like I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955) and I<br />
Want to Live!. Doris Day (b. 1924), severely typecast at<br />
Warner Bros. as the girl next door in nostalgic musicals,<br />
in her first role as a freelancer, played Ruth Etting<br />
(1897–1978) in the melodramatic musical biopic, Love<br />
Me or Leave Me (1955). The film brought her acclaim,<br />
but also letters from fans deeply <strong>of</strong>fended at seeing Day<br />
as an alcoholic trapped in an abusive marriage; she never<br />
accepted such a role again. Less surprisingly, when wholesome<br />
actresses like Donna Reed (1922–1986) and Shirley<br />
Jones (b. 1934) played prostitutes, they won OscarsÒ. These did not keep Reed and Jones from receding later<br />
into TV sitcoms (The Donna Reed Show, 1958–1966,<br />
and The Partridge Family, 1970–1974), where their<br />
sunny personas were permanently etched.<br />
Moreover, the rise <strong>of</strong> Method acting, as seen especially<br />
in the wide and lasting influence <strong>of</strong> Marlon Brando<br />
(1924–2004), encouraged versatility in acting and the<br />
assumption that a good actor should be able to play<br />
anything. This led to more adventurous casting but also<br />
to a good deal <strong>of</strong> miscasting; even Brando was capable <strong>of</strong><br />
appearing ridiculous in the wrong role, as in Desirée<br />
(1954), in which he played a bored-looking Napoleon,<br />
and The Teahouse <strong>of</strong> the August Moon (1956), in which he<br />
impersonated a Japanese interpreter.<br />
Off-casting works when it illuminates character by<br />
revealing aspects <strong>of</strong> an actor’s talent that had been previously<br />
undiscovered, as Hitchcock knew when he cast<br />
boys-next-door Robert Walker (1918–1951) and<br />
Anthony Perkins (1932–1992) in Strangers on a Train<br />
(1951) and Psycho (1960), respectively. Perkins’s case<br />
provides a cautionary tale, however, about how good<br />
<strong>of</strong>f-casting can turn into typecasting if producers thereafter<br />
are unable to picture the actor in any other kind <strong>of</strong><br />
role. Conversely, actors typecast as heavies have turned<br />
their careers around by playing a nice character or two.<br />
Ernest Borgnine (b. 1917) was known for brutal bullies<br />
in From Here to Eternity (1953) and Bad Day at Black<br />
Rock (1955) when he took the role <strong>of</strong> Marty Piletti, the<br />
good-hearted lonely butcher in Marty (1955). Borgnine<br />
projected ordinary humanity and decency and won the<br />
Academy AwardÒ for Best Actor. This was <strong>of</strong>f-casting<br />
that played as perfect casting.<br />
The line between <strong>of</strong>f-casting and miscasting can be<br />
thin. Gregory Peck (1916–2003) was so convincing playing<br />
earnest heroes <strong>of</strong> high moral rectitude that no one,<br />
including Peck, seemed to realize that he did not have the<br />
range to play much else. His attempts at ferocious characters<br />
like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick (1956) and evil<br />
villains like the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in The Boys<br />
from Brazil (1978) are infamous embarrassments. These<br />
are cases in which the actor miscast himself, and the<br />
producer, the director, the studio, and Peck’s fellow<br />
actors went along, hoping the gamble would work. Like<br />
other miscast calamities—from Oprah Winfrey (b. 1954)<br />
in Beloved (1998), whose rusty acting skills were not up<br />
to the demands <strong>of</strong> a very difficult role, to a fifty-year-old<br />
Roberto Benigni (b. 1952) as Pinocchio (2001)—these<br />
were the follies <strong>of</strong> a well-meaning, powerful star to whom<br />
no one wanted to say no.<br />
Broadly speaking, most miscasting has occurred<br />
when a major star has been put in a role for which he<br />
or she is clearly unsuited in order to increase the film’s<br />
box-<strong>of</strong>fice appeal. There is virtually a miscasting hall <strong>of</strong><br />
234 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM