Cinematography technique · used in 6 films
Casting unknown or non-professional actors with real accents and everyday looks alongside the leads. The group feels like an actual community, and nothing seems scripted or glamorous.
Examples
Jean Renoir · 1939
Renoir stages scenes with several conversations going on at the same time and characters crossing in and out of frame. It gives you the feeling of a world that carries on beyond what the camera is watching.
Where to see it: The dinner table sequences. You can hear the background conversations as clearly as the ones up front.
Miloš Forman · 1975
Forman cast several of the ward patients with actors who had little film experience. He spent time with them before shooting so their scenes with Jack Nicholson would feel spontaneous. The ward feels lived in.
Where to see it: The fishing trip sequence. You can see how physically at ease the cast is together in an uncontrolled outdoor setting.
Sidney Lumet · 1975
Lumet cast the bank employees and hostages so that the group's panic and dark humor feel spontaneous, as if nobody were performing them.
Where to see it: The bank tellers and the manager with Sonny. They negotiate, bicker and end up bonding with him over the hours-long standoff.
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen · 1996
The Coens cast the film so carefully that even the minor characters feel like complete people (the motel clerk, the parking lot attendant, the Minneapolis escort). The Minnesota accent is recorded faithfully and never mocked. As a matter of fact, the film's whole social world is built out of real, specific detail.
Where to see it: The witness interviews in Brainerd. Each local character is a full portrait of a person, and the casting makes the community feel like an actual place.
Richard Linklater · 2012
Some of the talking heads are actors and some are real townspeople playing themselves. Their accents and faces make Carthage feel like a real place. You trust the gossip because it sounds like it came from someone you know.
Where to see it: The townspeople interviews: Locals talk to the camera about Bernie's kindness and Marjorie Nugent's reputation.
Tom McCarthy · 2015
McCarthy directs Ruffalo, McAdams, Tucci, Keaton and Slattery as journalists with their own rhythms and histories. The cast plays like a working team, with the undramatic competence of real professionals. Nobody performs like a star.
Where to see it: The Spotlight team meeting to debate whether to publish early. The argument plays out as a disagreement about procedure, with no big dramatic confrontation.
Questions