DVD Review: Casting By

Casting By is a completely enjoyable documentary on film and television casting directors, particularly Marion Dougherty, who cast such films as Midnight Cowboy, Slaughterhouse-Five, A Little Romance and The World According To Garp. While the focus is on Marion Dougherty, the scope of the film is broader to include information on casting in general, including the changing views and methods of casting, with interviews with many other casting directors, including Juliet Taylor, Ellen Lewis and Lynn Stalmaster.

The film opens with a statement on the importance of what a casting director does. Martin Scorsese says, “More than ninety percent of directing the picture is the right casting.” The film provides some history of how casting worked in the early days before going into how Marion Dougherty changed things. In New York, she went to theatres to find actors, and liked to cast against type, and for chemistry. She admits, “When people say, ‘How do you cast,’ I always tell them, ‘Gut reaction.’” She talks about being hired as an assistant casting director on Kraft, and then taking over several months later. And she goes into the differences in casting between New York and Los Angeles. “Hollywood had no idea what casting was all about,” she says. Casting in Hollywood was all about physical types defining characters. And the film provides interesting information on how Hollywood did casting back in the day.

This documentary has a great, quick pace, with lots of excellent footage, anecdotes and interviews. When Marion talks about casting Warren Beatty and not being able to understand what he said, we are treated to footage of his performance, and I can’t make out a lot of it myself. “He should forget Brando and do his own thing,” Marion says. There is some great stuff on Naked City and the actors that Marion Dougherty brought to that series. She talks about the process of reading actors and taking notes on each of them (and the film shows us examples of her early notes on Gene Hackman and Jon Voight).

Casting By not only includes the perspectives of many top casting directors; it also includes thoughts on casting and casting directors by many of the industry’s most well-known directors and actors. Those interviewed include Robert De Niro, Woody Allen, Norman Jewison, Glenn Close, Al Pacino, Robert Redford, Jon Voight, Danny Glover, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Arthur Hiller, Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss, John Travolta, Jeff Bridges, Peter Bogdanovich, Cybill Shepherd, Norman Lear, John Lithgow, Mel Gibson and John Sayles. These actors and directors give personal accounts of how casting directors helped their careers and helped their films. Glenn Close says, “Marion Dougherty is the reason I was cast in my first movie.” And she is far from alone in making such statements. Interestingly, several seriously accomplished actors talk about how they initially gave terrible readings and performances. Jon Voight’s story is particularly entertaining. About his performance in Naked City, he says, “I was so bad, I got almost physically sick watching it.”

The documentary also delves into the industry’s response to casting, including the controversy over the term “casting director” and the fact that casting is the only main title credit without an Oscar category. And the film looks at more recent changes in the corporate influences behind casting. This is an excellent documentary that will enlighten the public on an aspect of filmmaking that is not often considered.

Casting By was directed by Tom Donahue, and was released on DVD on September 16, 2014 through First Run Features. The DVD contains no special features.