On View : PBS Visits a Golden Age

When it came time to cast her film “Strangers in Good Company,” the producers had one prerequisite: the women auditioning would not be professional actresses.

“These people are like great movie character-actors,” said Canadian director Cynthia Scott, who cast the non-actresses in a story of seven elderly women--heretofore strangers, with ostensibly nothing in common--whose lives are revealed to each other when their bus breaks down in the country and they’re forced to take refuge in a deserted farmhouse.

The film, which was released in 1990, premieres on PBS’ “American Playhouse” this week.

Scott, who marked her feature-length filmmaking debut with this film, had no idea when she started out what she was ultimately working toward. “I knew I wanted to make a film about old people,” she said, “but I didn’t even know if it would be be women or men.”

After nine months of research--talking with social workers, visiting institutions and private homes--Scott said she knew she didn’t want to do a “predictable ‘issue’ film about how bad it is to be old in our society. I wanted it to be about life--and the issue stuff would be subtext. I was much more interested in how they think they are perceived by others. Old people tend to believe what they’re told: that they’re insignificant, tedious, at best entertaining.”

When Scott and screenwriter Gloria Demers began auditioning, many of the participants apparently thought of it as a lark.

“For most of them, it was just something to do,” Scott said. Later, when she called the women to tell them they’d been cast, all but two balked at the offer. “I think they thought we were going to make fun of them. Also, it was like, ‘I’m no one--why would I be asked to be part of a movie?’ ”

To win them over, Scott said wryly, “I had to do a lot of begging and cajoling.”

Once the cast was assembled, Demers (who died at age 48 shortly after filming was completed) created a script reflecting the real lives and personalities of each of the women. But when it came to the shoot itself--done in Quebec’s misty, scenic Mont Tremblant region--the actresses did not work from the script. In fact, none of them actually saw it. “It was there,” offered Scott, “mostly as backup. I’d explain the setup of the scene--and then the actresses would just talk.”

The director admitted that the resultant catch-it-on-the-fly quality of the improvised scenes was both exhilarating and terrifying.

“Since they weren’t professionals,” she said, “I never knew what was going to happen, if they were going to fall apart or implode.” The bonus of non-rehearsal was the spontaneity of real performances--real women candidly ruminating about sex and children, faith and fears, life and death. “It was wonderfully concentrated work,” Scott said. “They were totally honest, incapable of falseness. And everything was totally fresh.”

Each day, she would explain the shooting plan to the players.

“The night before, I’d say, ‘Tomorrow we’re going to do this and this.’ Then the next morning I’d prepare them on what their psychological state would be, talk generally about the emotional territory--but never tell them what to say. I wanted to create that (authenticity) on camera. So what you see is real. The nun is a nun, the lesbian is a lesbian. And yet for me they stand for more than themselves. They are actors, and it is a work of fiction. They are symbols for what old people are.”

The director, 53, who began her career at the Canadian Broadcast Corp., received an Oscar nomination for best short drama in 1982 for “First Winter” (also scripted by Demers) and won an Oscar in 1984 for her documentary “Flamenco at 5:15.”

Although she’s long since returned to her directing duties at the Canadian Film Board, Scott often travels with the film whenever it pops up.

Shot over a period of five weeks 3 1/2 years ago and released in 1990, the film (which had a brief run in Los Angeles last year) has picked up several honors worldwide--including selection for the 47th Venice Film Festival, the Prix du publique for best feature film at the International Women’s Festival in France, the Grand Prix at the 39th International Filmweek in Germany, and the most popular Canadian film award at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

“And it’s been great for the actresses,” Scott stressed. “The experience of the movie pulled them out of an anonymous existence--and they became the center of that little film universe.”

The “American Playhouse” production of “Strangers in Good Company” airs Monday at 9:30 p.m. on KCET and KPBS.