How Orson Welles Compensated for a Mistake He Kept Making When Casting

I have a massive crush for this video interview with Orson Welles shot in Paris in 1967, when the man had fully embraced his persona.

Shot in a restaurant, while eating, surrounded by journalists hanging to his every word, Welles talks about a mistake he has found himself making over and over again during casting, and how he found a way to compensate it while shooting.

So here is what Welles says:

“When I’m casting, I tend to make the mistake of all producers and metteurs en scène (directors), I cast for how you look. I think about (the voice) but how you look is the first consideration.

And then, when I have them on the stage I’m very interested in their voices and it’s too late to change, unless you dub them. I make that mistake a lot. (…)

I think that if (a film) sounds wrong, then it doesn’t look right. Movies depend so much on rhythm. They are so close to music, closer to music than a drama of the theater, that if the sound, and the rhythm of the sound, above all the rhythm, is wrong, no image can save it. Because the rhythm of the sound… I believe sound is the first human sense for the theater, not the eye. I think the first theater was a story told by a storyteller, and it’s a voice, and the voice determines it, and the rhythm of the voice determines the images in some way.

It’s not only what you say, but the rhythm and speed of all the voices in a scene. That’s why often when I direct, I turn my back on a scene.”

—

This was a aha moment for me. Maybe Welles is being Welles, and he was never really turning his back when directing a scene, but I get what he means, and the essence here, even if you don’t want to take it literally, is that ‘sound editing’ when directing your actors is fundamental for a scene to reach its highest potential.

It is in the continuity of Tarantino’s technique to get useful feedback as the screenwriting stage too. Ultimately, if films are moving images, sound is this essential component, this first sense to quote Welles, that glues it all together when it follows the right rhythm.

I love that Welles talked the way you wouldn’t be able to talk today. I can’t imagine any filmmaker admitting that their artistic vision gets clouded by someone’s look over talent to tell a text during casting. But if they do, maybe finding there’s a way to make it work will help.

I know that as I start having my first serious conversations with my producer about casting for In Five Years, Welles’ admission has never felt more useful and relevant.

Watch the video of Welles interview below, thanks to Ina: