MOVIES : FILM COMMENT : Moths to the Flame : The pull of directing is strong for actors--Jodie Foster and Sean Penn just made the move and show signs of a common affliction

It was a one of those large-as-life ornamental Santa Clauses, incongruously perched on a unsnowy L.A. lawn. One evening, apropos of nothing at all, a passerby impulsively threw his arm around Mr. Claus’ plastic shoulder and announced to the world, “He’s only a Santa, but he’d like to direct.”

For while outlanders and naifs still gravitate to Hollywood hoping to make their mark as actors or (saints preserve them) as writers, those who already act or write or even produce invariably have a different goal in mind: to direct.

If anyone gets to be the guiding intelligence on a particular film, odds are it will be the director. Despite grumblings to the contrary, everyone discovers sooner or later that, in Preston Sturges’ words, “there was only one job and that was making them. Everything else was secondary.”

Though these things tend to go in cycles, actors are suddenly in the forefront of those succumbing to that powerful lure:

* Kevin Costner walked away with all the marbles, both at the box office and in the academy, when he directed “Dances With Wolves.”

* A pair of well-reviewed current films, “The Indian Runner” and “Little Man Tate,” were directed by Sean Penn and Jodie Foster, respectively.

* Barbra Streisand’s version of “The Prince of Tides” is due in December.

So the linked questions “Why do they do it and how well?” seem very much in order.

Certainly, unlike producers (or studio executives, for that matter), actors have no need to prove they’re as creative as the next fellow. And, unlike writers understandably eager for self-protection, actors don’t have to endure the cold business of seeing their dreams turned into someone else’s nightmare.

So what actors want to do is not just be creative but to expand creatively, to say things they feel they can’t through acting. Tired of being marionettes, of having their strings pulled by people who tend to treat them cavalierly and place them in cliched, repetitive situations, they want to take control of a creative process into which they feel they have special insights. And having to work closely with directors has apparently convinced them that, with a strong cinematographer and an experienced production crew behind them, any dunce can do the job. Given much of what comes out of Hollywood these days, it’s hard to argue the point.

For writers, making the transition to director traditionally has been difficult. Sturges, the first sound-era screenwriter to do so successfully, characterized the pains he had to take to persuade Paramount executives to let him direct his own script for 1940’s “The Great McGinty” by saying “the seduction of a virgin saint would not have been better planned.” The arduousness of that process does not appear to have changed much over the years.

Actors, especially since the collapse of the studio era turned them into independent operatives, have had a much easier time of it. What producer wouldn’t want to get on the good side of someone whose participation in a future production might mean the difference between a studio yes or no, and what studio wouldn’t want to curry favor with a personage whose on-screen presence can make hundreds of millions of dollars worth of difference worldwide? An unsuccessful vanity production might be soon forgotten by all concerned, but a long-term relationship is a joy forever.

What “Dances With Wolves” did by breaking the bank was change the equation by adding even more dollars to the pot. No longer need studios think of actor-directed films as almost invariable losers at the box office. Now they could curry favor and feed their insatiable financial blood lust at the same time.

As if that wasn’t incentive enough, one of the things that both “Indian Runner” and “Little Man Tate” show is that having a star as director puts you several legs up on the competition in media exposure for your film. Sean Penn, for instance, who has generally been as friendly toward the press as a pit bull on an off day, discovered a previously camouflaged affability and sensitivity and was rewarded by extensive press coverage of his directing debut.

With Jodie Foster, the situation was equally remarkable. A superior actress and by all accounts an articulate, thoughtful and cooperative woman, she parlayed her media good will into even more flattering coverage than Penn got, racking up covers of magazines ranging from Redbook to Time.

And as far as reviews went, most critics tended to bend over backward to give both “Little Man Tate” and “Indian Runner” the benefit of every doubt. If you read the notices closely, you could see that in their heart of hearts the approving reviewers wanted to say “nice try” more than anything else, but who besides close relatives reads critics closely? That kind of kid-gloves treatment is swell work if you can get it, and you can get it only if you’re a star.

Once actors get to direct, their experiences, on one level at least, vary tremendously. Some, like Marlon Brandon after “One-Eyed Jacks,” appear to lose interest, while others, like Clint Eastwood, become so enamored they turn into the most reliable of journeymen. Some, like Woody Allen and Orson Welles, find they truly have the gift, while others, like Charles Laughton after “Night of the Hunter,” are devastated to find they have the gift but that no one gives a damn.

Yet on another level, most of the actors who turn director share one unifying and understandable trait: They are extraordinarily sensitive to their fellow performers. Especially in first films from actors, you can almost feel the warm and comforting cocoon these folks wrap their casts in, showing them every courtesy, allowing them to take every beat their performance could possibly allow.

This may sound like a good thing, and at times it turns out to be so. A case in point is Paul Newman’s regrettably underrated and little-seen version of “The Glass Menagerie” starring Joanne Woodward, John Malkovich, Karen Allen and James Naughton. As an actor, Newman understood the value of Tennessee Williams’ words, and not only enabled his cast to get absolutely everything out of them, but also knew enough to prevent glitz or razzle-dazzle from getting in their way.

This kind of positive result, unfortunately, is more the exception than the rule. What is more likely to happen is that actor-directors, filled with empathy for their often battered brethren, invariably overindulge the performers under their sway. Actorly excess, the dread tendency to go over the top, is either unrecognized or ignored, until even the most tolerant viewer is dying to scream “Cut!” at the screen.

Even “Dances With Wolves” fell victim to this syndrome, as anyone who remembers the foul-smelling wagoner and the foaming-at-the-mouth cavalry officer who ended up shooting himself can attest. What saved this film from the scourge of actor overkill was the unlikeliest of heroes, the humble subtitle. Most of the cast spoke in Lakota, and if they were chewing the scenery only their friends and neighbors knew enough to wince and complain.

To different degrees and with different results, both “Indian Runner” and “Little Man Tate” fall victim to this tendency. As a devotee of actor-director John Cassavetes, who felt improvisational exercises were the sine qua non of a film’s success, Penn did not feel it necessary to hire a screenwriter other than himself or to have a fully fleshed-out script for his picture, and it shows. More than that, he became so enamored of his actors that he indulged their every twitch and grunt to a point that should have been embarrassing.

While no one is allowed to run that amok in “Little Man Tate,” Jodie Foster exhibits a parallel inability to take total control of her actors, including, in this case, herself. Though her film has appealing moments, it is largely unfocused, a road without a map. Is little Fred Tate’s kid-genius predicament a serious or a comic one? Is the child psychologist (played by Dianne Wiest) who tries to help him a caricature or a person we are supposed to care about? Why is the college kid who takes pity on Fred (Harry Connick Jr.) given too much screen time for a cameo, too little for a major player? Does anyone care?

That last question, obviously, is not a fair one. Jodie Foster, who has indicated that her own experience as an acting prodigy informed her intentions here, obviously cares a great deal, and even as a novice director has much more to say in her film than Sean Penn, for all his posturing, does in his.

With any luck, that sensibility will be joined to a greater ability in the medium and Penn, who right now has a superior grasp of a director’s tools, may perhaps come up with something worth saying. They both are clearly very serious about becoming directors but, a ton of publicity and media good will notwithstanding, those are the kinds of wishes not even Santa Claus can deliver on overnight.