I don’t talk much about casting but it is a part of what I do.  One of my top casting tips is to watch auditions with the sound off.  Ask yourself what is the actor giving off- regardless of the words he or she is saying.  Casting is one of the times when I think the words get in the way. In one of my consulting jobs, I was called in to help figure out why an actor was floundering in his role.

He was a young pop star in the country involved.  He was cast in an extended recurring role.  He was meant to be a “bad boy”, rebel, slightly dangerous love interest for a popular young actress on the show.  They dressed him in ripped jeans, scuffed motorcycle boots, and a cool leather jacket– meant to emulate a young James Dean.  But he wasn’t connecting with the actress or the audience.

I asked the producers to cut together three scenes in which the actor was prominently featured. They could be from anywhere in story.  We watched the scenes with the sound off.  I asked the writers and produces what this actor was giving off.  They chose words like: eager, open, sweet, puppy-dog like.  There wasn’t a dangerous bone in his body.  We changed his Character Type and he became a great success.

Actors will tell you they can play anything.  And that is true.  But if they play a role outside their emotional zone they will bring craft, professionalism, and technical skill to the role.  But we will be able to see them acting.  No audience wants to see acting.  They want to see a character being him or herself.

Casting is one of the things that makes Scandi Noir so compulsively watchable.  The actors look like real people engaged in a professional, criminal, or ordinary pursuits. They have faces you might see on the street in an ordinary Scandanavia town. They don’t have “Hollywood teeth”.

When I was in South Africa I learned Black Sails was shot at Cape Town Studios. That series passed me when it aired,  I decided to catch up.  The pirates were very authentically dressed for the ragtag dangerous life they lived.  They had missing fingers and toes, lost legs, gouged out eyes, and cruel scars– but they all had perfectly even white teeth!

Loyalty vs. Betrayal When does betrayal look like loyalty and vice versa? Who can your character trust? Can a character be loyal to someone as he or she is betraying that person? Can loyalty be an act of betrayal?

Ally vs. Enemy How does the character’s view of “good” and “evil” shift or change? Who is hiding what? Who is working behind the character’s back for good or ill? How does the character work against him or her self?

Pursuer vs. Pursued What is the character running after and what is he or she running from? How does this change or reverse itself?

Truth vs. Lie How does the “truth” move and morph depending on perspective, or new or reinterpreted information? What is really the truth, how does the truth shift or change depending on shifting perceptions? What is delusion, what is misleading and what is outright active deception?

Desire to Suspect vs. Need to Trust How does the character wrestle with suspicion, paranoia, and the aftereffects of betrayal or seeming betrayal? Can your character fully know the heart of anyone? Can your character fully trust him or her self? Can anyone ever be 100% certain of anyone or anything?

Illusion vs. Reality What is real and what is a set-up, a lie, misinformation, a conspiracy, a delusion, or hidden below the surface of things? How much of perception is preconception, prejudice, ignorance, naivety, pretense, paranoia, duplicity, trickery, or a set up?

Certainty vs. Uncertainty What can be pinned down, proven and quantified, and what will always have an element of the unknown, the mysterious, or the unexplained? Is anyone ever all “good” or all “bad”? How does the character deal with moral ambiguity, shifting perceptions, or shades of gray? Isn’t every situation a shade of gray? Aren’t all people combinations of good and evil?

All great Power of Truth stories — mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and detective stories answer these key questions.

Rififi

According to Wikipedia “The film was banned in some countries due to its lengthy heist scene, referred to by a Los Angeles Times reviewer as a “master class in breaking and entering as well as filmmaking”.  The Mexican interior ministry banned the film because of a series of burglaries mimicking the robbery protrayed. Rififi was also banned in Finland. In answer to critics who saw the film as an educational process that taught people how to commit burglary, the director, Jules Dassin claimed the film showed how difficult it was to actually carry out a crime (and get away with it).”

After he was blacklisted from Hollywood, Dassin, found work in France. He shot Rififi on a low budget and without a star cast.  Although like Fellini, Dassin has a keen eye for wonderful faces.  Authenticity is better than star power any day, in my book.

The film was offered distribution in the United States on the condition that Dassin renounce his past, declaring that he was duped into subversive associations. Otherwise, his name would be removed from the film as the writer and director. Dassin refused and the film was released by United Artists who set up a dummy corporation as the distributing company. The film was distributed successfully in America with Dassin listed in the credits; making him the first director to break the Hollywood blacklist.

What impressed me the most was a 30 minute segment almost completely without dialogue during the tension-filled jewel heist.  It’s choreographed to keep you riveted in suspense.  Sexual jealousy, friendship and betrayal make make this a must see Power of Truth classic.

Yet again a film looks at how we are haunted by our past.  Without examining the past and transcending it we are doomed to repeat whatever it was that got us into trouble in the first place.

Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) loses his job and is offered a quick $100 to find a politician’s girlfriend.  She’s a white girl who likes hot jazz and has been seen frequenting an illegal “colored” nightclub.  Denzel quickly gets caught up in murder and blackmail.

In the best thrillers, (Power of Truth stories) the crime or mystery is a way of going deeper into the main character.  While the investigator is chasing someone or something he is usually running from himself. No such thing happens in Devil In A Blue Dress.  It’s a straight forward by-the-numbers episodic investigation.  No larger deeper truth is revealed.  We learn nothing new about the protagonist and he learns nothing about himself as a result of solving the mystery.

Worse, the devil in a blue dress isn’t devilish at all.  She’s just misguided, believing love will trump her mixed race background and she can marry her white prince charming.  She’s a femme fatale on the run without any dangerous claws.

Roger Ebert summed up my feelings perfectly in his review:

I liked the movie without quite being caught up in it: I liked the period, tone and look more than the story, which I never really cared much about. The explanation, when it comes, tidies all the loose ends, but you’re aware it’s arbitrary – an elegant solution to a chess problem, rather than a necessary outcome of guilt and passion.  http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19950929/REVIEWS/509290302

It doesn’t surprise me there was no second movie adaptation of the Easy Rawlins franchise.