The phrase ‘alter frames of reference’ is a useful one because it hints that what is at

stake here is not just better opportunities for the actors. ‘Frames of reference’ is comparable to
Pau’s notion of an accord to describe how theatre audiences understand
how they should approach colour-blind productions. Its use here appears to offer some
recognition that audiences need a similar accord when presented with the casting of
BAME actors in unfamiliar contexts, particularly as the theatrical protocols which encourage the
suspension of disbelief do not automatically apply. Instead, I would argue
that British screen drama has generally been marked, to varying degrees, by a commitment to
realism or, at least, plausibility. Loader suggests this when, in discussing
the casting of David Copperfield, he comments that the reason film has lagged behind
theatre in diverse casting may be down to the ‘feeling behind it somewhere that photography
tells the truth. Film seems a kind of realist medium to lots of people’ (qtd. in
Clarke). In terms of classic adaptations, this has tended to mean a claim to value authenticity in
period detail, a fidelity, if not always to the book then to ‘the look and feel
of the periods in which they are set’ (Hasenfratz and Semenza 346).1
This encourages
in the viewer a demand for plausibility which may be reinforced by textual conventions
involving genre, characterization, or narrative organization or by contextual framings
relating to publicity about and experiences of historical and social formations. My examples are
taken from three cinema films which all feature BAME casting but do so
in different ways.2
Drawing on comments from the production teams and the press as
well as some analysis of the films themselves, I aim to show how this casting is framed
so as to help audiences make meanings. From Wuthering Heights in 2011 to Lady Macbeth
in 2017 and Mary Queen of Scots in 2018, these films represent comparable but different
approaches to colour-blind casting.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS (2011)
Wuthering Heights is a feature film supported by Channel 4 and the UK Film Council and
directed by Andrea Arnold, who was known for her critically well-received accounts of
precarious life in contemporary Britain. Arnold and her casting director Gail Stevens
used open auditions to find the adult Heathcliff. In publicity interviews, Arnold talked
about her reasons for her decision to cast black actors to play Heathcliff, relating her
decision both to the book and to a more general sense of Heathcliff’s difference:
I went through a bit of a process with it. When I looked at all the references to Heathcliff’s
appearance in the book, it was clear to me he wasn’t white. He was definitely different. . . . After
a while I realized that he is different from the other characters on multiple levels, including
very possibly his race. When Emily’s writing about Heathcliff, she’s really writing about herself
or a part of herself, anyways. I started to feel that she felt different and, therefore, wanted
to make difference an important theme in the novel. (qtd. in Kemmerle)
In her comments, Arnold seems to move to a position in which ‘the difference’ she
finds in the novel is less about race and more about Bronte’s own feelings about herself.
Describing how she came to cast James Howson, she says that from the beginning she
wanted ‘to cast an unknown in the role of Heathcliff because he’s such a raw character.
He needed to have an underlying anger . . . using someone who had never acted before
would bring a different sort of feeling to the film. We had open casting calls, and Jam