Star Image
As we consider cinema as an art form beyond fidelity, it is important to more overtly explore aspects of film that are unique. One major characteristic of cinema that has little equivalent in other forms of storytelling is the presence of the movie star. We have already examined the auteur theory, which argues that the director is the author of the film, assigned the primary responsibility for the film’s ideas and style. However, we also want to consider the presence of the performers on screen, mostly because they contribute more than any other single factor to our ability to identify with characters. While many of us know quite a few directors by name and may even know what they look like, we can also name far more movie stars and actors. Through them, we gain access to cinematic storytelling.
Scholar Richard Dyer has done the most important work on considering how we as audiences derive meaning from the movie stars and actors we see on screen. In his book Heavenly Bodies, he considers stars as images, asking us to think about how the performers on screen contribute to our understanding of cinema as an art form. Dyer offers this helpful explanation: “The star phenomenon consists of everything that is publicly available about stars. A film star’s image is not just his or her films, but the promotion of those films and of the star through pin-ups, public appearances, studio hand-outs and so on, as well as interviews, biographies, and coverage in the press of the star’s doings and ‘private’ life. Further, a star’s image is also what people say or write about him or her, as critics or commentators, the way the image is used in other contexts such as advertisements, novels, pop songs, and finally the way the star can become part of the coinage of everyday speech.” So, in considering what stars mean, we have to think about the film roles that they play, but also other information about them that is publicly known. Stars have an image that repeats from film to film, but that image is also shaped by other contextual pieces of information about them. It might be useful to consider actors as having a signature, not unlike the idea that the French critics applied to directors. Certain stars are known for specific kinds of roles, or they represent specific ideas that carry over from what we know about their personal lives. Think about the kinds of characters we might associate with actor Clint Eastwood, for example; the images below from A Fistful of Dollars (1964, Dir. Sergio Leone, top left), Dirty Harry (1971, Dir. Don Siegel, top right), Gran Torino (2009, Dir. Clint Eastwood, bottom left), and The Mule (2018, Dir. Clint Eastwood, bottom right) demonstrate how the actor has established a screen persona, one which we associate with him, across fifty-plus years in front of the camera.
Star images are essential to Hollywood filmmaking, and were often associated with specific kinds of films; genres helped to build individual star images. According to Dyer, “Stars like Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Steve McQueen, James Caan establish their male action-hero image either through appearing in Westerns, a genre importantly concerned with nature and the small town as centres of authentic human behaviour, and/or through vivid action sequences, in war films, jungle adventures, chase films, that pit the man directly, physically against material forces.” On the other hand, other kinds of male stars were categorized differently based on the types of films in which they appeared: “romantic styles of brooding, introspective, mean-but-vulnerable masculinity have been given Oedipal, psychosexual, paranoid or other crypto-psychoanalytical inflections with stars like Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Anthony Perkins, Jack Nicholson, Richard Gere.” Hollywood filmmakers worked to establish stars’ identities, and then exercised them through repeated casting in similar roles; this is where we get the concept of typecasting, where actors are usually pigeonholed into specific kinds of parts that become increasingly hard to break out of. Think of comedian Adam Sandler consistently playing morons and people with rage problems; when he tries to break out of those kinds of roles, audiences take note. Breaking out of an established persona that an actor has worked hard to create can carry tremendous risks; an audience may reject the performance, unable to see the actor convincingly portray a person so different from their established role.
In Dyer’s opinion, stars are crucial to our understanding of cinema because we identify not only with the people themselves, but with what they represent. He argues that “what makes them interesting is the way in which they articulate the business of being an individual, something that is, paradoxically, typical, common, since we all in Western society have to cope with that particular idea of what we are. Stars are also embodiments of the social categories in which people are placed and through which they have to make sense of their lives, and indeed through which we make our lives – categories of class, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and so on.” Much of what stars mean is dependent on context, which is shaped by the society we inhabit. In American culture, for example, mainstream definitions of masculinity take on certain specific characteristics that stars then enact. Barry King offers a useful list of common factors that Hollywood studios looked for in its male performers: “Thus, the ideal leading man should be aged between 19 and 25 years, at least 5 feet 10 inches tall but not over 6 feet 2 inches, well-proportioned physically, handsome, rugged or interesting looking, have all his own teeth and hair.” These physical characteristics, especially once an actor who embodies them has achieved a measure of success, can become limitations that prevent the star from stepping outside of them: “For the actor committed to impersonation in such circumstances, the gross details of physical endowment pose severe problems since they are very often unalterable. Generally speaking, the actor cannot be moved out of the naturalistic personality implications of his or her physique, however stereotypical or factually wrong these are.”
While any number of stars function this way, the career of Marilyn Monroe offers a useful example. First of all, Monroe is a perfect illustration of how stars were constructed—that was not her real name. Marilyn Monroe was actually Norma Jean Baker, and though she was famous for her blonde hair, she was not actually blonde. In this way, she demonstrates that stars are almost always two people—they are the actual person, and then they are the star image. Tom Hanks, for instance, is both Tom Hanks and “Tom Hanks.” The quotation marks signify an idea, an image, a theoretical Tom Hanks that is fundamentally a creation of movie studios, marketing, his appearances on talk shows, and mostly, his work on film, which has lent him a kind of warm, “America’s Dad” everyman quality. Monroe’s example illustrates this further, because unlike Hanks, she is actually using a stage name that creates the image for her. The name Marilyn Monroe becomes the quotation marks around “Norma Jean Baker,” in other words. Marilyn Monroe is not a real person—that is an image created by the same forces that built “Tom Hanks.” Here she is in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953, Dir. Howard Hawks), a film that helped cement her on-screen persona.
Before she became a star, Monroe posed nude for a calendar, needing a quick buck. After she hit it big, the photos appeared in the first issue of Playboy magazine and caused a minor scandal. In an era where the Production Code was still dominant in Hollywood, the idea that men could pick up a magazine and see a major movie star naked was shocking—this was well before nudity in films was allowed. However, times were changing, and the scandal did not destroy Monroe’s career; in fact, it helped it. She began to take on additional cultural meaning, with the nude photos and audience awareness of them beginning to inform her on-screen persona. Dyer offers a useful reading of Monroe’s meaning as a star image, one that both informs her film roles and transcends them. He says that “In the fifties, there were specific ideas of what sexuality meant and it was held to matter a very great deal; and because Marilyn Monroe acted out those specific ideas, and because they were felt to matter so much, she was charismatic, a center of attraction who seemed to embody what was taken to be a central feature of human existence at that time.” The nude photos were an important piece of context for understanding her on-screen roles; they did not appear in any film she made, but they played an important role in teaching audiences how to interpret her image when she appeared on screen. Her role in Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch (1955), about a young woman who unwittingly tempts a hapless married man who lives in the apartment beneath her, makes direct reference to the photos. The Girl (Monroe, given no other name in the film) tells her neighbor that she posed for some scandalous pictures in a magazine, which the man happens to own. He looks at them while she is upstairs; the camera doesn’t show us the photos, but his reaction tells us everything we need to know.
Dyer argues that Monroe’s star image was directly associated with her physical attributes: mostly, her blonde hair and curvy figure, both of which were emphasized in the nude photos and in many subsequent roles that she played on screen. In Dyer’s estimation, these aspects of Monroe’s image transcended all others: “The direct physical presence of Monroe is never lost sight of behind other later emphases, such as her wit or acting abilities.” He also suggests that Monroe’s blondeness and whiteness functioned together to create a lasting image of on-screen sexual desire, forming a kind of stereotypical example of the so-called ‘ideal woman’: “Monroe conforms to, and is part of the construction of, what constitutes desirability in women. This is a set of implied character traits, but before it is that it is also a social position, for the desirable woman is a white woman. The typical playmate is white, and most often blonde; and, of course, so is Monroe. Monroe could have been some sort of star had she been dark, but not the ultimate embodiment of the desirable woman.”
Stars carry meaning. Literature or other forms of storytelling (theatre is an exception, though its stars do not reach the level of fame or meaning that film stars do) have no equivalent function. On the page, a character is just a character. In cinema, characters are embodied by stars who carry with them associations from previous roles. An actor who nearly always plays villains on screen will likely induce an audience to distrust him when he first appears, especially in a crime thriller or suspense film. An actress who nearly always plays comedic roles may be expected to deliver laughs when she shows up on screen. Audience expectations can often be confirmed, but can also be used against them, as when actors defy type and play roles that they are not usually associated with.
Vincent Price - Star
Chances are, you are most familiar with Vincent Price if you’ve ever heard Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The final narration—that’s Price. His presence on the track is an acknowledgement of the viability of star image, which can transcend the screen and carry meaning on a pop song. Because “Thriller” invokes horror and science fiction genre conventions in a musical setting, Jackson and his producers sought out Vincent Price to provide the final, spoken-word portion of the song. Not only was Price’s voice incredibly distinctive and easily recognizable to audiences familiar with his on-screen persona, he also carried a strong association with the genres invoked by the song’s lyrics and musical sound. Price was a horror and science fiction icon—his presence on “Thriller” takes advantage of an audience’s familiarity with him. Price's narration begins around 4:25.
Price’s appearance at the end of “Thriller” plays on the audience’s awareness of his star persona, associating him with the kinds of science fiction and horror thrillers that proliferated in the 1950s and 1960s. Though Price appeared in other kinds of films (including noir and in Cecil B. DeMille’s biblical epic The Ten Commandments in 1956), his work in the science fiction and horror genres is what he is most remembered for. Michael Jackson was not the only artist to use Price’s persona to his advantage near the end of his career. Director Tim Burton cast Price in his first short film, Frankenweenie (he provided his famous voice once again), and then he appeared on screen in Edward Scissorhands (1990) as the inventor who builds Johnny Depp’s title character, showing Burton’s awareness of Price’s screen persona, casting him in the kind of role he had often played in the genre before.
Price was known for his distinctive appearance and acting style within the genre he commonly occupied. He was tall and lanky, and frequently cast as effete, sinister types who had a lot of dark secrets. He appeared in a number of adaptations of the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe (most directed by Roger Corman), in which his characters were often afflicted, mentally unstable rich men living heinous, wicked lives inside their cloistered mansions. As a director, Corman took advantage of Price’s established screen persona, but also deepened it, helping to shape the way many generations of audiences would subsequently view him. Here are a collection of images from the Poe adaptations featuring Price:
As a treat, it is also worth considering how an actor’s screen persona can not only be used by filmmakers, but also parodied. Actors with a clearly defined screen persona open themselves up to imitation and mockery. I have embedded a sketch performed on Saturday Night Live, in which actor/comedian Bill Hader, a skilled impressionist, plays Vincent Price. Notice the way Hader adopts and exaggerates Price’s mannerisms. Now that you have some familiarity with Price’s screen persona, Hader’s impression becomes funnier and more impressive for its attention to detail.
clip quiz - star persona and willem dafoe
Review the following clips and answer the questions in Blackboard.
THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988, Scorsese)
Identify a series of Willem Dafoe’s particular performance characteristics in his body, voice, and facial expressions in this scene from The Last Temptation of Christ. What stands out about Dafoe as a performer? What are his significant attributes? How does he use them while playing Jesus? |
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SPIDER-MAN (2002, Raimi)
What part of Willem Dafoe’s screen persona does this clip from Spider-Man emphasize? Why would the filmmakers cast Dafoe to play this role, the villain Norman Osborne (who becomes the Green Goblin)? |
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SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE (2000, Merhige)
Though he’s buried under layers of makeup, Dafoe is still recognizable as the actor playing Count Orlock in Nosferatu in Shadow of the Vampire. How does Dafoe’s performance shine through the prosthetics? What’s definably Dafoe about this character? |
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THE FLORIDA PROJECT (2017, Baker)
In The Florida Project, Willem Dafoe is cast somewhat against type as a patient, magnanimous motel owner. How does this scene use your knowledge of Dafoe against your expectations? How is he different in this sequence than you expect him to be? |
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willem dafoe - star
With his instantly recognizable face and penchant for playing a whole panoply of screen villains, actor Willem Dafoe is surely one of the most important character actors of his generation. In mainstream films, he usually provides valuable support, either in colorful cameos or as notably psychotic antagonists. Outside the mainstream in independent films or when working with highly unconventional directors, he takes on challenging roles that push the limits of violence and sexuality. In the 1980s crime thriller To Live and Die in LA, an early performance of his, Dafoe establishes several characteristics that will be important to his screen persona for many years.
As the counterfeiter, Rick Masters, a frustrated artist who paints, but then burns his own work when he finds it unsatisfactory, Dafoe is both inscrutable and sadistic. While he paints in his spare time, his main money-making enterprise is in the production of counterfeit money, which also requires him to use his artistic abilities. Making the money in his desert warehouse laboratory requires him to draw, sculpt, and work with paint. Unable to find buyers for his legitimate art, he finds a number of takers for his illegitimate work.
Director William Friedkin, who started as a documentarian, was known for his commitment to realism in many of his films—it is on display here, too. In the extended sequence where Masters makes counterfeit money near the beginning of the film, Friedkin recalls some of the process-oriented approach to realism he takes throughout his work. According to his audio commentary on the DVD of To Live and Die in LA, the production was so committed to authenticity that they actually counterfeited money in the shooting of this scene. Friedkin himself was not quite so aware that their production had technically committed a federal crime; in the final edit, he says, they had to rearrange the steps in the editing so that their film would not be a how-to guide for prospective counterfeiters. In the shooting, they had done the real thing.
To Live and Die in LA is one of the most significant crime thrillers of the 1980s, just as The French Connection was for the 1970s before it. Because Friedkin privileges realism above all, his visual and auditory style is extraordinarily malleable to the context in which he is working. The French Connection set the standard for a certain kind of 1970s style; in the video commentary at right, I demonstrate how To Live and Die in LA exemplifies a typical 1980s style.
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Dafoe, who got his start as a performer in the 1980s, is a key part of this visual style. When he was cast in To Live and Die in LA, he wasn’t quite an unknown, but he was certainly a new screen presence, and director William Friedkin used that to his advantage. Dafoe hadn’t yet developed a reputation for playing a ton of on-screen villains; his role in To Live and Die in LA started to establish that for him.
An actor’s physical features play a major role in shaping the kinds of parts they get to play, and Dafoe’s unique looks certainly made him fit more for supporting characters and villains than leading men in major Hollywood films. He learned quickly how to use his high cheekbones and impossible wide, toothy smile to communicate a sense of sinister intelligence. Dafoe’s villains are, like Masters, usually brilliant and sadistic, with an undercurrent of ruthlessness that makes them quite volatile and unpredictable.
Though not quite yet as gravelly as it would become later in his career, Dafoe’s voice is considerably important to his screen persona, as well. The depth of his vocal range is already there even in 1985, with each line sounding like a door creaking open. He adopts a flat affect to his relatively emotionless Masters, a man who is used to being in control. He sounds the same whether he is ordering a hit on an accomplice who might betray him to the police or describing his arrangements for giving a bundle of counterfeit money to the undercover Treasury agents who are pursuing him.
In watching To Live and Die in LA today, with some familiarity with Dafoe’s screen persona, you may bring associations and meaning to the film that were not available to audiences in 1985 when it was released. But the key thing to take away is that in the roles that Willem Dafoe plays across his many films, he carries specific layers of meaning that make him instantly recognizable. He is one of those actors—immediately indicative of a certain kind of character.
An actor’s screen persona becomes an essential form of authorship. Though a film may have a strong director, the movie star was, for much of the Hollywood studio era, the major way that audiences connected with individual movies. It is easy to see how actors, by virtue of their established personas, become authors of the films in which they star. A film starring Tom Cruise is built around what audiences know about him—often, his daring approach to physical stunts and action. A film starring Meryl Streep is built around what audiences know about her—a defining commitment to performance craft. Screen persona is often the most visible evidence of cinematic authorship available to a general audience.