Later, I picked up an issue of Rolling Stone Magazine with an interview with Oliver Stone and he talked about casting Platoon. In the interview he revealed that he actually cast a Native American actor for the role of Sergeant Elias, my favorite character. This took me aback. Why was a Native actor not good enough for the role? I mean, he could have recast the role with another Native actor but chose Dafoe instead after seeing his work in To Live and Die in L.A.
January 28, 2007
Native left out of Platoon
No One Ever Sees Indians: “The Turn”The image of the beads and feathers continue to endure during the new enlightened period of the 1970s and still a Native Voice continued to be missing. The 80s showed few choices in regards to Native American films. More often than not, non-Natives were portraying Native roles, irregardless of Chief Dan George’s portrayals. The first time I realized that Native American actors were being ruled out was with the success of Oliver Stone’s Platoon, about his own experiences during the Vietnam War.
Later, I picked up an issue of Rolling Stone Magazine with an interview with Oliver Stone and he talked about casting Platoon. In the interview he revealed that he actually cast a Native American actor for the role of Sergeant Elias, my favorite character. This took me aback. Why was a Native actor not good enough for the role? I mean, he could have recast the role with another Native actor but chose Dafoe instead after seeing his work in To Live and Die in L.A.
Later, I picked up an issue of Rolling Stone Magazine with an interview with Oliver Stone and he talked about casting Platoon. In the interview he revealed that he actually cast a Native American actor for the role of Sergeant Elias, my favorite character. This took me aback. Why was a Native actor not good enough for the role? I mean, he could have recast the role with another Native actor but chose Dafoe instead after seeing his work in To Live and Die in L.A.
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7 comments:
Writerfella here --
Is the individual who wrote this long and weepy article totally unaware that Tom Berenger is a Native actor? That the person he so loved to hate is the very person he said was missing from the film? Oh, but of course, he must be using that same 'part-Natives need not apply' escape clause that others use here when it suits their whim. If there ever is a double-amputee Native American actor, he likely also will be so discounted on this site for being only 'part-Native', depending on which parts he still has...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Wikipedia says, "Berenger was born Thomas Michael Moore to an Irish Catholic family in Chicago, Illinois." I don't know anything about his Native background, so why don't you fill us in?
I can't vouch for author Whiteman, but yes, this is a context where being part-Native would be relevant. If Berenger has some Native ancestry, it would undercut Whiteman's argument.
On the other hand, Whiteman's point was that the Sgt. Elias character was originally supposed to be a Native. Casting an actor who isn't recognized for being Native in another, non-Native role isn't an equitable trade. The point still stands: A major character in Platoon went from being Native to non-Native.
Writerfella here --
Since PLATOON was written and directed by Oliver Stone, whose own personal story and Viet Nam experiences inspired the film, he was free to tailor his own story and history the way he wanted it to be as a film. There is a very telling story that may indicate the experiences of film directors, producers, and even casting directors with Native actors who come to audition for the roles. As writerfella has said several times, when he tried out for the part of Squanto's father in SQUANTO: THE STORY OF A WARRIOR, the auditions were held in the Indian Center in Tulsa and Lynn Stalmaster himself was doing the casting. writerfella was about twelfth in line to read for the part and, realizing that the casting director would tell him to remove his eyeglasses, he spent his time memorizing the script 'side', as he otherwise would not be able to do a 'cold reading'. Surely enough, when writerfella sat on a stool in front of the small TV camera, Lynn Stalmaster asked him to take off his glasses. That meant reading was impossible and so he responded to Stalmaster's words as much into the part as he could. It took maybe 8 minutes and then was over. As writerfella was leaving, the man stopped him, shook his hand, and said, "Thank you for knowing your lines!"
Over time, that has come to mean possibly that Native persons who audition for movie and TV roles either don't have the experience (it was writerfella's fifteenth such audition) or the training to realize they must know their lines. That would be enough for anyone, but most especially a writer-director, to change the way he himself had written the screenplay...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
So you don't think any Native actor was good enough to fill the Platoon role? Not even Graham Greene, Wes Studi, or Gary Farmer? I guess you don't think much of Native actors.
Let's consider a few other hypotheses. Maybe Oliver Stone was ignorant of the breadth of Native talent. Maybe he didn't try hard enough to find an acceptable Native actor. Maybe he didn't think such an actor would be appealing or commercial enough.
There are many possibilities, and a dearth of Native actors is only one of them. If Mel Gibson could find several acceptable Mexican Indian actors, I'm guessing Stone could've found one acceptable American Indian actor. If Stone bothered to search at all, he had an entire continent of Indians to choose from.
Writerfella here --
Wrong again, in that writerfella had nothing at all to do with the auditioning or casting of the movie PLATOON and therefore cannot decide if whatever actors audtioned were good or bad. He simply is interpolating from his own history and experiences. But, as the article states, SOMETHING changed Oliver Stone's intentions and writerfella's own observed characteristic more is logical than an assumption that Stone arbitrarily changed his own mind. Occam's Razor, so to speak...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Wrong again? "I guess you don't think much of Native actors" is a spot-on response to "Native persons who audition for movie and TV roles either don't have the experience (it was writerfella's fifteenth such audition) or the training to realize they must know their lines." If you don't like my noting your denigration of Native actors, don't denigrate them.
All we know from the original posting is that Stone first cast a Native actor and then cast a non-Native. We have no evidence whatsoever about his thinking. The simplest explanation is that Stone hired the Native actor because he was qualified...the Native couldn't do the job for some reason...so Stone hired a non-Native because he was too busy or lazy or uncaring to find another qualified Native.
Your implied alternative--that Stone auditioned many Native actors but couldn't find another qualified one--is less straightforward and credible than mine. Such a search would've cost Stone time and money. Going by Occam's Razor, my theory is the more likely one.
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