Adam Tyree | Audition / 2015

the target

by Douglas Messerli

 

Adam Tyree (screenwriter and director) Audition / 2015 [5 minutes]

 

During the second-decade of this century, USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate Adam Tyree produced a number of interesting short gay films that revealed a true talent. He has gone on to become an editor and photographer of some note.

     Audition, a 2015 very short film, certainly revealed some of the frustrations of young actors, but in the end isn’t one of Tyree’s most significant short works of the period. There are others I reviewed that I thought to be much more successful.

     The young actor in this case, Carson (Bret Green), shows up presumably with numerous other young handsome studs to read for a role in a gay film.

     He sits back and, in a sort of mockery of method acting, leans his head against the blue wall and reads the part, as the director (Jake Brown) describes it, as “wasted.” Indeed, the director wonders why he’s chosen to read the role in this manner. Fortunately, he gives Carson a second chance to read the part more “normally.” He does so, although it’s clear the script isn’t so remarkable that a “normal” reading makes it any better.

     The reading over, he’s reminded that it is a gay film, and his character will be shown with full frontal nudity. Accordingly, he’s asked if he’s “okay” with that and is immediately queried if he’d mind disrobing in front of the director and casting director (David Beier).

     “Like, right now?”

     “Yeah, just so we, you know, know.”

     Hesitatingly, he pulls off his shirt. There is silence. And he asks, “You mean my pants too?”

     “Sure.”

     He pulls down his pants and they ask him to turn around, which he does, tossing up his hands in some frustration.

      “How much did you say this pays?”

      “Well, it’s a low budget film, so, 40 bucks a day.”

      He leaves, and exits the building without signing out, presumably without providing whatever else they might have needed of him. In any event, it’s clear he’s given up this particular “opportunity.”

      The writer/director’s personal description of this film reads: “Being an aspiring actor isn’t as glamorous as it seems.”

      The trouble with Tyree’s short glimpse of the inside of gay film casting, is that most viewers of such films probably never imagined that working on such low-budget efforts was ever glamorous. Moreover, I suspect that Tyree meant to suggest that the body check was not only an affront but perhaps represented a bit of unnecessary voyeurism; moreover, the fact that the actor might be chosen for the way he looks instead of the way he acts seems to be an affront.

       Yet, it’s difficult to feel truly sympathetic for Carson. After all, gay films are very much reliant on the appearance of their actors, particularly if there are to be nude scenes. As one commentator on the IMDb site wondered, what was the purpose of the film since, to him or her, it appeared a very ordinary experience of a young actor without any significant difference from hundreds of such interviews and casting sessions. And he is not as glamorous as he might imagine himself to be.

       Did Carson (and by extension Tyree) imagine that he’d be spared a check of his body if the film contains nudity? Certainly, Tyree’s film eschews the voyeuristic moment, and shows his actor only from the navel up. And we observe that, in fact, the auditioner, Green, is little bit chunky. But this isn’t an example of couch casting, and these men surely cannot be castigated simply for checking out the territory they are about to explore in their film. They present it all quite matter-of-factly.

      In short, for me the film doesn’t arouse much sympathy for Carson’s character or, for that matter, I can’t discern a great deal of satiric of critical response in Tyree’s movie. But I am certain that others, in the increasingly sexually scandalized US landscape, will find what Carson has “suffered” as more than a little offensive and perceive Tyree’s film as an insightful revelation. But perhaps we’re all missing Tyree’s possible satiric target, the actor himself.

 

Los Angeles, June 6, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2023).