Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

fame: John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conquerer
(1956), Elizabeth Taylor (b. 1932) in Cleopatra (1963),
Cybill Shepherd (b. 1950) in Daisy Miller (1974), Demi
Moore (b. 1962) as Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter
(1995), Tom Cruise (b. 1962) in Interview with the
Vampire (1994), Anthony Hopkins (b. 1937) and
Nicole Kidman (b. 1967) in The Human Stain (2003).
As these examples indicate, literary adaptations and historical
films are the most difficult to cast because critics
and audiences bring a preconceived concept of the characters,
one that can clash with the personae of wellknown
actors.
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO CASTING
The most basic alternative to conventional casting is to
use nonprofessionals. Some directors believe that only
through untrained faces can social reality and human
truth be captured on film. The Italian neorealist films
of directors such as Vittorio De Sica (1901–1974) and
Roberto Rossellini (1906–1977) are the best-known
exemplars of this type of casting. Such approaches did
not begin with neorealism, however. Soviet directors of
the 1920s, such as Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) and
Vsevolod Pudovkin (1893–1953), cast their films’ collective
protagonists along the principle of typage, a way of
casting ‘‘faces in the crowd.’’ Not quite stereotyping,
typage is the depiction of sailors, officers, or factory
workers in summary images that evoke every sailor or
worker. The Soviet filmmakers wanted players who could
perform actions simply and artlessly and would thus serve
their functions as ‘‘cells’’ in the cinematic ‘‘organism.’’
This use of the actor as formalist material differs
markedly from the humanism of a director like De
Sica, a film actor himself, who thought that nonprofessionals
could better convey a realism that would move
audiences. De Sica and Rossellini, as had the Soviets,
discovered their casts by announcing open casting calls,
which drew members of the public to audition. They also
instructed assistants to keep their eyes open for people
who might have a look that the filmmakers were seeking.
Interestingly, the casting of children in American movies
today is done through a similar combination of open calls
and happenstance. When casting children for major
roles, Debra Zane says, ‘‘you have to do searches, you’re
looking at as many six-year-olds as you can find, and
then you see a child in the mall and you ask the mom,
‘Can I talk to you for a moment?’’’ (Gillespie, Casting Qs,
p. 371).
Another kind of casting that employs nonprofessionals
is the ‘‘acting as modeling’’ favored by Robert Bresson
(1901–1999). Like other directors who prefer to use nonactors,
Bresson sought to eliminate learned, practiced
expressions and gestures. However, Bresson saw acting
itself as belonging to the theater, not film. For such films
as Un condamné à mort éschappé (A Man Escaped, 1956),
Pickpocket (1959), and Une femme douce (A Gentle
Woman, 1969), Bresson’s models were trained to be themselves
while saying words they have memorized by repetition,
like automatons (another term Bresson often
used), rather than learned by internalization, as an actor
would do. Therefore the spectator projects emotion onto
the models based on their words and actions, rather than
sharing an emotion that the actor projects. Bresson’s
models were often brought to him by friends who believed
the potential models had the presence and personality
that the director would then paint onto film with his
camera. This is not to say that anyone could be in a
Bresson film. Indeed, most of his characters are young
and attractive, but Bresson looked for a quality that the
camera will pick up, rather than qualities that an actor
can create for the camera to photograph.
SEE ALSO Acting; Agents and Agencies; Production
Process; Stars; Star System; Studio System
Casting
FURTHER READING
Georgakas, Dan, and Kevin Rabelais. ‘‘Fifty Years of Casting: An
Interview with Marion Dougherty. Cineaste 25, no. 2 (2000).
26–32.
Gillespie, Bonnie. Casting Qs: A Collection of Casting Director
Interviews. Hollywood, CA: Cricket Feet Publishing, 2003.
Kondazian, Karen. The Actor’s Encyclopedia of Casting Directors.
Hollywood, CA: Lone Eagle Publishing, 1999.
Kurtes, Hettie Lynne. ‘‘Casting Characters.’’ American Film 15,
no. 10 (July 1990): 38–44.
Mell, Eila. Casting Might-Have-Beens. Jefferson, NC: McFarland,
2005.
Quandt, James. Robert Bresson. Toronto: Toronto International
Film Festival Group, 1998.
Dennis Bingham
SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM 235