Who can play who? | The Press

Sophie Desmarais plays the alter ego of filmmaker Chloé Robichaud in her beautiful new film, Happy Days, presented this Friday as part of the Festival du nouveau cinéma. Her character Emma is not a director, but a conductor. Emma is also a lesbian, unlike the actress who plays her.

Two years ago, British actor Eddie Redmayne said he regretted playing a trans woman character in the film The Danish Girl by Tom Hooper, which earned him a finalist for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2016. Trans characters are rare and trans actors have few opportunities to showcase themselves, he noted.

Who can play who? And who should be able to decide? Some would like to confine straight actors to straight character roles, or cisgender actors to cisgender roles. While the on-screen representation of actors from minorities has finally become an issue, the question of “authenticity” in the distribution of roles is becoming more and more controversial.

Recently, films have been criticized golda, Oppenheimer And Maestrorespectively about former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, physicist Robert Oppenheimer and American composer Leonard Bernstein, to feature non-Jewish actors (Helen Mirren, Cillian Murphy and Bradley Cooper).

Helen Mirren’s grotesque nasal prosthesis in golda inevitably led to accusations of “Jewface” (an old anti-Semitic stereotype). That of Bradley Cooper in Maestromuch more subtle, has also been criticized.

Responding to the criticism, Helen Mirren told British media this week that she understood the controversy and had met the blow by reminding Israeli-American filmmaker Guy Nattiv that she was not Jewish . “He told me that it wasn’t a problem for him,” said the actress.

We often call for separating the work and the artist. I also believe that we must separate the actor and his character. Which is not to say that any actor can play any role, without exception.

There will not be many people left, in 2023, who support the practice of blackfacewhich has its origins in racist minstrel shows.

There is certainly a distinction to be made between making up a white actor as a black man and giving the role of a Jewish character to an actress of another faith. It would be wrong, on the other hand, to judge the delicate question of “Jewface” as ridiculous, which also refers to an ancestral racist practice. Dressing a non-Jewish actor with a nasal prosthesis is open to such accusations.

In defense of Guy Nattiv, a filmmaker born in Tel Aviv, the historical character he portrays is well known. Golda Meir was Israel’s prime minister. She also had a protruding nose. An actress with a little snub nose couldn’t have played her. It wouldn’t have been credible.

One of the great defects of golda, Nattiv’s film which was released at the end of August in Quebec, is that Helen Mirren’s nasal prosthesis takes up all the space in it. To forget the acting, however impeccable, of the actress. We only see Helen Mirren’s nose because we know her face too well. The same nasal prosthesis, on a lesser-known actress, might have gone unnoticed. But without Helen Mirren, would Nattiv have succeeded in obtaining financing and would his film have been presented at the Berlin Film Festival?

Criticism of “Jewface” is legitimate, Helen Mirren rightly points out. Does this mean that actors of faith X should not be able to play characters of faith Y? Of course not. Nor, in my opinion, should the roles of homosexual characters be limited to gay actors. Sophie Desmarais is fantastic as a conductor in Happy Days.

If it were proven that gay actors were passed over for gay roles or systematically pushed aside for straight roles, that would be a different story.

A British actor with dwarfism, George Coppen, recently complained that a role intended for a short actor was instead given to Hugh Grant in Wonkaan ante-episode of Charlie and the chocolate factory, which is due to be released in mid-December. The various film adaptations of Roald Dahl’s famous tale had featured small actors in the role of Oompa Loompa.

George Coppen claims that short actors no longer find roles in cinema. It is certainly rare to see a small actor in a leading role, like Peter Dinklage in She Came to Mea film by Rebecca Miller which opens this weekend.

Filmmakers will say, rightly, that the distribution of roles is their prerogative. The credibility of their film depends on the characters being credible themselves. An objective of the actor is to make people believe in characters who have nothing to do with him. This is the very nature of the game. Sophie Desmarais is not a conductor, but seeing her directing musicians, we spontaneously believe that this is her character’s job.

Daniel Day-Lewis was exceptional as an artist with cerebral palsy in My Left Foot by Jim Sheridan. Could an actor with a similar disability have played this role? Maybe. As well as one of the greatest actors of his generation, who also won an Oscar for his performance? Maybe not.

We could say, Converselythat Children of a Lesser God Or Coda would have been less realistic films without the presence of actors Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur, two deaf actors who also won Oscars.

We come back, in the distribution of roles as in other matters, to the question of intention. If the intention is not to perpetuate stereotypes and reinforce prejudices, it is more a question of awkwardness. Caution and discernment are required when avoiding caricature. Guy Nattiv was undoubtedly in good faith when he entrusted the role of Golda Meir to Helen Mirren. He should have invested part of his salary in a better prosthesis…