James Dean Is Just the Beginning: Critics Debate the Future of CGI Acting

“Looney Tunes”

Richard Brody (@tnyfrontrow), The New Yorker

I’m not quite sure what the question means, so I have to leave this answer Blanc. If it weren’t for cartoons, one of the great classic-age actors, Mel Blanc, wouldn’t have had much work. Without motion capture, another great actor, Andy Serkis, might have been underemployed. Silent films made the acting of Maria Falconetti possible; talkies launched the career of Marlene Dietrich; mini-DV enabled Agnès Varda to become one of the great on-screen presences of the time. Every format and every technique offers new possibilities for performers and for the directors who work with them. The only problem with CGI is that it appears to be mainly in the hands of studios, or, occasionally (as with “The Irishman”), with filmmakers whose use of them demands studio-level budgets. When independent filmmakers start tinkering with CGI on a low budget and use it as uninhibitedly and form-breakingly as the live-action camera, the innovations will outleap incremental predictions. 

“Death Stranding”

Edward Douglas (@EDouglasWW), The Beat, The Weekend Warrior

Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, I immediately thought of the bad that can be done with CG, maybe because I just had a dream about Adam Sandler remaking “That’s My Boy” (a movie I haven’t seen, mind you!) with him playing both the roles of the father and son using CG à la “Gemini Man.” Surely, that would be the worst possible use of CG even than bringing James Dean back from the dead! (I’m willing to bet that 90% of the people complaining haven’t even seen James Dean’s three existing movies from when he was alive). 

That aside, let’s get to the good, and it’s important to realize that CG is a tool, nothing more, nothing less. Just like the movie camera. How filmmakers will use it will be determined by their skill. In some cases, like having a low budget and not enough days to shoot, maybe CG acting can be used to create better performances out of what one has. CG is already used to create things like action in movies like “Avengers: Endgame” where many of the characters in the fight sequences are fully CG. How is that not the same as the “CG acting” that people are complaining about? (Except that the actors are alive and they realize this is being done, of course).

Now imagine if an actor gives the greatest performance of their entire career but due to technical issues (bad sound, a dozing focus puller?) that performance isn’t captured as perfectly as hoped. CG could be used to make fixes by having the actor’s face scanned into the computer using similar techniques that are being used for video games like “Death Stranding” where the main character is Norman Reedus’ scanned face and voice-over on a fully CG character… just like the iterations being cited. The cut scenes in that video game would end up costing 100s of millions of dollars if they were created similarly to a movie even if Reedus performed on a green screen. So CG-enhanced acting is being used for “good” in video games, and there’s little reason why movies can’t follow suit. 

“The Irishman”

Luke Hicks (@lou_kicks), Film School Rejects, The Playlist, Polygon 

I’m not confident CGI acting can make films better. If so, it’s in a way I’ve yet to see or hear a compelling case for. That said, I don’t necessarily think CGI acting plagues every film that employs it. “The Irishman” is a perfect example of how it can be used well, which is not to say it makes the film better, but it provides a lateral tool of cinematic expression. Sure, it gifted us another epic De Niro/Scorsese collaboration, but it’s a relatively neutral move. I can easily imagine a 20-something A-lister playing young Frank Sheeran and all of us getting a kick out of it. Hell, there could have been three or four different actors playing Sheeran at various stages, and I’m sure we would’ve had a ball bouncing between stars. But, I thought Scorsese and company pulled off De Niro’s CGI aging well. I never found it distracting. If anything, I was impressed by the CGI craftsmanship. 

I’m more concerned with how something like the James Dean iteration could be twisted and abused. It raises some good questions, at least. Will actors start losing jobs to dead CGI stars? Is Judy Garland about to be a standout performer again? Will a young Paul Newman resurface as a teen heartthrob in fifteen years after a few good “performances?” What will major studios like Disney—who only cares about profit margins, approaches art like suits approach the stock market, and has no spine when it comes to originality, the creative agency of filmmakers, or the social autonomy of the masses—do if they can make a star-studded film without having to pay for real actors? And just consider how deep the pool of the entire history of A-listers is in Hollywood. It would be an endless source of wealth. Are we going to start getting Star Wars movies in 25 years with spritely CGI Hans, Leias, and Lukes? Will Disney’s live action remake tactic shift to classics with dead stars? Will we start praising CGI animators for their realistic acting manifestations instead of actors themselves? Is BoJack right? Would CGI manifestations be eligible for awards? Of course, all of these things seem distant, but maybe we’re in the eye of the storm, and the threat is much closer than it seems. 

Mike McGranaghan (@AisleSeat), The Aisle Seat, Screen Rant

I really don’t think it can. No CGI can recreate the emotion or the humanity that a living actor brings to a role. And since we know we’re looking at CGI, there’s an automatic psychological barrier that always keeps things at a slight distance. I believe there’s a firm limit to how far CGI acting can go, and it’s not very far.

“Rogue One”

Lindsey Romain (@lindseyromain), Nerdist

It’s hard to answer this question given how morally opposed I am to this sort of technology even existing. There’s something so ghoulish about recreating a dead person’s likeness without their explicit consent, and I’m not really sold on the de-aging thing either. But yes, it’s something we have to contend with and accept, and something we’ll absolutely see more of. I would hope that actors start making clauses in their wills that either grant or banish their permission for any post-death recreating; I feel like that’s a good first step. I also think it works best when it’s limited to a scene or two, or seen from a distance. I imagine the Tarkin stuff in “Rogue One” would have worked better if we saw him from the shadows or in profile. It conjures the idea without creating something distractingly uncanny valley.

I really wish, when it comes to the de-aging technology, that creators would start relying more on strong casting to do the work. I think of movies like “Looper” or even TV shows like “Mindhunter” that show that good actors and well-placed prosthetics do a good enough job of creating likeness. I know that’s a fool’s hope, and that we’re way more likely to see young, rubber-faced CGI versions of our favorite beloved actors – and many of them don’t seem all that bothered in participating in this. I guess I’m hopeful we’ll get some loud and vocal opposition to it that will start calling the practice into question. 

“The Congress”

Oralia Torres (@oraleia), Cinescopia, Malvestida 

So we’re totally headed towards the digital future presented in “The Congress”, right? Not terrifying at all! This kind of controversy comes around every few years as technology advances (I remember people freaked out about that when “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” came out), and it has finally happened with both “Gemini Man” and “The Irishman.”

I’m not sure how CGI could enhance a performance — after all, with CGI all over their face or not, if an actor’s terrible it will come through — yet it opens new possibilities: An actor could play anyone in a biopic and have a better likeness to the figure played through CGI instead of makeup, for example. De-aging tech could do wonders for women, who could expand their acting years beyond the age of 25 (billionaires will end world hunger and poverty before the social pressure to look not a year older than 22 while being a woman dissappear). 

Like any new tech, it still requires lots of thinking about the social and ethical implications, like “color-blind” casting or using the face and sound of someone long gone to play a part in a new movie about a highly political event instead of hiring anyone else. Taking, for example, the case of the James Dean casting for “Finding Jack”: how can someone who isn’t able to know what the Vietnam War was “play” a soldier in a movie about that war? What if they did know what the Vietnam War (or any other global political event) was and were actively against it, died and then someone who “bought” their image used it to play some,one complicit in that? The idea of “buying” the visual identity of someone gives me chills.

Anyways! Yes, CGI could do wonders to enhance performances and tell wider (and wilder!) stories, yet it still depends on how and why use it. The devil is in the details, after all.

Q: What is the Best Movie Currently Playing in Theaters?

A: “Parasite”