Cast a Wide Net When Fishing for Stars

The names of Jane Feinberg and Mike Fenton may not be two you are familiar with, but trust me, they were Hollywood heavy hitters. These two casting directors were a couple of Hollywood's most talented for several decades. They were both heavily involved in some of Hollywood's most well known productions. Time and again the pair seemed to have the magic formula to put together an ensemble that spurred box-office blockbusters and award winning films. Their resume includes:

Aliens

The Godfather Part II

Indiana Jones 

Young Frankenstein 

E.T.

Blade Runner

Total Recall

Goonies 

Chinatown (One of the greatest films ever made. The cast? Suburb!)

A Christmas Story (This cast created magic together so potent TBS plays it on endless repeat Christmas Day here in the states.)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

And of course...

Judging by the condensed resume I have provided i would say it is unquestionable the pair of talent scouts had quite an impact on several decades of movie making.  I would argue they also had quite an impact on several generations of impressionable minds especially here in the United States. As a kid growing up in the 80's these certainly were films I was watching.

Goonies Rant: I loved the two Corey's in Goonies.  It seems quite weird to me looking back; the two were so attached to each other especially in the way the pair were packaged together in many of their films and tabloid magazine covers, they were a team almost; weirdly floating through a child's nightmare called Hollywood like two quantum entangled kids. Its seems a lot of the child stars, from the decades Feinberg and Fenton were on top, have similar stories. (Im certainly not claiming the two are in anyway responsible for the endless stream of heartbreak and destruction in the lives of Hollywood child stars but I guess that that is more a comment on how Hollywood works. That being said I cant help but to notice their repetitive connection to the likes of Spielberg, Nicholson, and Polanski and wonder if something more dubious is at work here.)  Fast forward to present day and those two adorable little Corey's have fallen quite far.  One of the Cory's died from an overdose and the other is claiming to have been fucked by everyone in Hollywood EXCEPT Michael Jackson. Tragic.

Back to Feinberg and Fenton.

Beyond Back to the Future; Feinberg and Fenton (F&F) were involved in a few other projects worth mentioning here.

Capricorn One

From Wikipedia "Capricorn One is a 1978 thriller film that narrates a government hoax created to deceive the public on a supposed Mars landing. It was written and directed by Peter Hyams."

A government hoax created to decieve the public on a supposed Mars landing.

Hmmm...

Why am I highlighting this film?

Because of a couple of connections that cannot be coincidence that will come full circle back to F&F.

Lets start with Peter Hyams.

Never heard of him?
Me either.

According to Wikipedia Peter Hyams is best know for directing Capricorn One and 2010: The Year We Make Contact (a sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey).  Why does that matter?

Okay I realize the likelyhood of you watching three hours of YouTube videos isnt great so I'll summerize (but you are genuinely doing yourself a great disservice by not watching the 3 hours of YouTube videos I'm suggesting. In fact you should really be watching ALL the videos I have  on the blog and be visiting ALL the links I embed or you're just not getting the full story). 

Kubrick may have hidden a secret message inside of his masterpiece The Shining revealing he was involved in faking the Apollo 11 moon landings. 

Have a closer look.

Im not going to go through the laundry list of reasons Mr. Jay Weidner suspects The Shining may have some kind of underlying subplot of Kubricks potential involvement the Apollo 11 decption (if there were any deception). I do however find his analysis on this subject in particular quite compelling and certianly worth some serious consideration.  But we were talking about Peter Hyams werent we. So let make my way back there.

Peter Hymes, as metioned previously,  directed the sequal to Kubricks's 2001: A Space Odyssey; 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

Hymes also Directed Capricorn One, the plot of which, sounds pretty similar to Kubricks alleged admission of faking Moon landings on a soundstage for the United States government.

Capricorn One let's remember was cast by good old F&F.

If it pleases the court, I'd like to know introduce the film Toy Story into evidance.

Let me explain.

Toy Story, quickly summerized, is about a loudmouth toy astronaut that replaces the wholesome, golly gee and well shucks ma'am cowboy as the favorite plaything for their young but slowly maturing owner. Only the astronaut doesnt know he's a toy.

In 1955 (the era Spielberg, Zemeckis, Gale, Feinberg and Fenton would have  certainly been watching a lot of television) cowbows were the heros of the day.

Fifteen years later a more "mature" audience sees the astronaut has replaced the cowboy as the national hero and then the old western stars kinda faded away. (Kinda part of the plot line to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.)

Where did they go? Well into politics of course!

Hmm there's that guy again

But back to Toy Story. The astronaut was named Buzz.

Apollo 11 had an astronaut named Buzz.

This was the scene where Buzz Lightyear learned he could not fly, was not an astronaut, but a toy.

What if this were the scene that Buzz Aldrin knew he was not a real astronaut but something like a toy. A plaything. The one the kid brings out to try and impress his friends with all the cool shit they have. "Look at this, I've got a real Buzz Aldrin!"

The are standing on the SAME fucking carpet!

Toy Story casting director?
Mike Fenton.

I dont want to under sell this point. So let me make sure we all understand what I'm thinking.

RECAP:
Mike Fenton and Jane Feinberg put the casts together for Capricorn One, a film about the Gov't faking a Mars landing, the director of which filmed the sequel to Kubricks's 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Which in my eyes puts F&F a step away from Kubrick. Kubrick told us in his film, The Shining, he faked the Aopllo 11 Moon landings on a soundstage with a rear screen projector. Perhaps Stage 237. (Please do yourself a favor and check out the doc Room 237. Its so fucking good.) The pivitol scene has Danny lifting off from  a curiously patterened carpet wearing an Apollo 11 sweater. Apollo 11 had an astronaut named Buzz. Toy Story features an astronaut named Buzz. Mike Fenton (of F&F) was responsible for casting Toy Story. Toy Story's Buzz believes he is a real astronaut until he learns he cannot fly. The pivitol scene has Buzz standing on the same carpet as little Danny in that pivitoal scene in The Shining. Buzz learnes that maybe he is actually an Asstronaut.

I believe F&F may be two of the finest talent scouts Hollywood has ever seen. The pair have been heavily involved in the careers of several of Hollywoods biggest stars during the era they were working together.

I want to highlight one in particular today.

F&F made Tom Hanks.  By "made" I mean made the image the public has of Tom Hanks. Nice Guy. Everyman. Sincere. A touch of sappy. Which is offset by the little bits of quirky and goofy that come through so you have this image of this kind gentle lovable sometimes goofball. Why does Tom have this image?

Films like...

(All films cast by F&F.)

We think Tom is so much that kind gentle lovable sometimes goofball he was surely the obvious choice to voice Sheriff Woody.

If you dont think voice association is a thing then try this little excercise for me. Next time you are watching actual television; sit through some of the commercials. Try and identify the celebrity's voices narrating the ads. Then considerwhy you think a certain brand or product would want to associate themselves with a particular celebrity.

For example Mercedes uses John Hamm to narrate what they are trying to sell you. Why? Mad Men. I'm assuming the target audience  is kinda douchy , has money, watched the fuck out of Mad Men and associates John Hamm as the swinging broken genius Don Draper. The wish the were Draper. They now associate swinging genius and cool with Mercedes.

This is what actors do. They build an image. They continue to reprise these archetypal roles again and again because we believe them in the roles. They are good in them.

Of course we believed Hanks when he played the war hardened Captain John Miller. The leader of the boys that died to Save Private Ryan. The guy who was a simple history teacher that coached baseball in the spring and loved to watch his wife prune rosbushes in his work gloves. He got caught up in this damned mess simply by doing his duty and just wanted to get back home to see his wife and thos rosebushes again. (Gag me.)

Tom Hanks has never seen war. But when he acts like he has we believe it. Why. Because we have been sold an image. Tom Hanks is a man but he is also a brand. An image. The foundation of that image was built by the casting directors Feinberg and Fenton.

So all of this to say Feinberg and Fenton are well versed in creating personified archetypal charceters using certain actors abilities. They are also quite adept in casting roles whith these same archetypal characters to set the stage, so to speak, to tell mutiple stories at once. Prime example being Toy Story.

Good old Sheriff Woody is cast aside for exciting brash Buzz Lightyear. Woody was voiced by lovable Tom Hanks. Buzz by brash mans man Tim Allen.

Tim Allen built his brash and mans man personality or image with his show Home Improvement, his stand up routine and even his arrest for cocaine possesion back in the 70's.

In the publics eyes Tim Allen is Tim Taylor. A more power loving dumbass that must be set straight by everyone else in his life, the neighbor Wilson, Al his sensitive t.v. side kick, his wife and even ocassionally his own kids.

 He and Buzz are essentially the same character just in different outfits and situations.

I realize I kinda keep saying the same things over and over but repetion is how we learn.

So, F&F were most likely at the very top of a short list of casting agents capable of putting together a cast that jived on screen as well as the cast of BTTF seemed to do.

This film franchise has me completely rethinking what it is that casting agents do. What is it they cast?

It certainly seems these talanted talent scouts somehow have an ability to detect an actors inner archetype or an actors ability to project a certain archetype. I think of it like a scientist's ability to calculate an atoms atomic mass. Its not something they can see without aid but with the right instruments and in the right settings we can get a relatively accurate measure. What if we all have our own "atomic number" that accurately describes who we are to the most insignificant detail? What if talent scouts like F& F were somehow better able to get a read on an individuals "atomic number" than most anyone else? I believe there is reason to suspect as much.

All of this is obviously building to something so stay tuned to find out why F&F might deserve this much discussion.

Surprisingly the cast of Back to the Future had quite a ofsignificant impact on the film beyond just acting in their roles.