DegreeCritical.com posted an analysis of Casting JonBenet in 2017. In June 2019 they reposted it to Twitter and I wrote the analysis below as a response.
https://degreecritical.com/2019/06/28/fallback-friday-casting-jonbenet/
I read this thoughtful essay when it first came out in 2017. As I am mentioned twice in the essay, I thought it might be interesting to use those two anecdotes as a way of providing a little different view of #CastingJonBenet.
I am the “pitiful man who complains about his chair.” It might not be immediately obvious as to why, but I actually take that as a compliment.
That scene begins in between two takes. (The vast majority of the acting scenes in Casting JonBenet were only single take and were not directed in any way. Kitty knew she was making a documentary and apparently there are rules for many awards organizations about what percentage of a documentary can be directed. So these acted scenes had no table reads, no rehearsals, no blocking, no direction on tone or the scene’s meaning in the film, and most often were only a single take. They were essentially improvisations at the actor’s discretion. Once again, this was by intent.)
I had spent an hour getting myself into the emotional space I wanted for my take on the scene, and if I had to pick a word for the emotional tone, it would indeed be “pitiful.” My take was John Ramsey was unaware of what had transpired that night until he got up the next morning, but yet to some degree still blamed himself for not preventing it with his final line of “I went to bed.” That was the state I was trying to maintain in between takes as I was, at the same time, breaking character to help create the physical situation I needed to navigate that emotional arc. I was very grateful to get the second take, and glad it made the cut. A lot of the podcast critic world have both deride me and praised me for being so method.
It is interesting the essayist said it was played for laughs, because at both theatrical viewings I attended (the Sundance premier and a local screening in Denver) the audience did not laugh at that point. Perhaps that is just a difference in sensibilities between New Yorkers and other parts of the country. I do think the scene was intended to look a little disheveled in the beginning, but then arc into a genuine moment of despair.
And that would be the main point I want to make on this anecdote. I don’t think Kitty was trying to make me (or anyone else in the film) look pathetic. Most of what made the film were peak moments of conversations between actor and director, often in the middle of an hour long interview. It is easy to see why some might think those auditioning just sat down and started saying the most controversial things they could, but that was not the reality of the situation. Kitty listened to hundreds of hours of what had to be very similar analysis of the situation in order to extract a few minutes per person of more profound insight. I know I wouldn’t have had the patience to do that.
I am also the actor who “decided it would “help”.” The essayist concludes I thought the film would help me determine “..what the murder meant for himself.” Here the essayist is pretty far off-base (not a slight, I have insider information 😉 ).
I can’t speak for the other actors or participants (I say participants because some of the people appearing in the first half of the film had literally zero acting experience, while virtually everyone appearing in the second half of the film has professional representation in Denver), but I was not being informed about myself by the character I was portraying. Rather, the opposite is true…I used my personal life experience to gain empathy for and bring depth to the character I was portraying.
My notion of “help” was a fairly broad one. Clearly, as the essayist pointed out, we weren’t going to solve the crime. But my hope was we could bring some understanding about tragedy in life, and that these were real people, not characters in a fiction.
And that’s the point I want to make with this anecdote. I don’t see Casting JonBenet as exploitative but rather as humanizing. By showing the process of trying to empathize with people in a tragic situation, we maybe all become a little more human. For me, the climax of the film is the scene just before the brilliant montage. Here several actors are revealing very personal experiences and how those experiences helped them relate to the Ramseys. These are intensely private moments shared for the world to see and hopefully to which the world can relate.
That scene takes the roller coaster to the top and the montage is the tragic, cathartic fall. But my favorite moment of the film is when the lights come up on a JonBenet we can only hope exists in some alternate universe-happy and glorious. What better way could there be to remember her? What better way could we hope the tragedies of our lives are replaced in some other place and time?
(I have spoken of Kitty many times in this piece, but want to be clear these are my opinions. My experience with Kitty in the matter of interpreting Casting JonBenet is she wants to leave that to the viewer and not inject her thoughts.)
