Tools of Characterization
Characterization in All About Eve
Actions
Just Act Normal
Our two main characters are actresses, so of course their actions characterize them in ways nothing else can. The tricky part is that Eve is acting way before we realize it: hanging out and watching Margo's play every night; being helpful and becoming Margo's personal assistant. It's all a ploy to eventually take over Margo's life.
We see Eve get frustrated when her façade starts to fall apart, too. After she tries to seduce Bill, and fails, Eve almost tears her own wig in half. The Little Miss Perfect face she puts on is an act, too.
Margo, on the other hand, is far from perfect. She's a flawed woman, and we watch her get a little too drunk at a party and treat her friends like dirt. She casually tosses her expensive fur coats on the floor and berates her wardrobe assistant. It's hard to watch because we know Margo is trying hard to be a genuine person—the opposite of Eve, who's trying hard to look perfect. The key difference is that we also see Margo apologize and make amends, something Eve would never do.
Direct Characterization
Cast of Characters
During the presentation of the Sarah Siddons Award in the movie's first few minutes, Addison, in voice-over, literally tells us all about the movie's major characters, setting our expectations for each of them. Karen's the playwright's wife, only in the theater by accident of marriage. Lloyd is the playwright. We learn about Margo:
ADDISON: Margo Channing is the Star of the Theater. She made her first stage appearance, at the age of four, in Midsummer Night's Dream. She played a fairy and entered, quite unexpectedly, stark naked. She has been a Star ever since. Margo is a great Star. A true Star. She never was or will be anything less or anything less...
He introduces Eve, too:
ADDISON: The cover girl, the girl next door, the girl on the moon... Time has been good to Eve, Life goes where she goes; she's been profiled, covered, revealed, reported, what she eats and when and where, whom she knows and where she was and when and where she's going...
Karen, in voiceover, tells us about Margo and Eve. Margo has her own take on Eve that she tells us in her narration.
MARGO: The next three weeks were out of a fairy tale, and I was Cinderella in the last act. Eve became my sister, lawyer, mother, friend, psychiatrist and cop—the honeymoon was on...
The voiceover narration, which is a retrospective POV, tells us things that we don't know just from the present action and dialogue.
Dialogue
Mankiewicz wrote brilliant, sophisticated dialogue that just jumps off the screen and paints a vivid picture of our leading ladies and gents. We can see that they're all brilliant, cynical, literate, opinionated types whose strong personalities clash throughout the film.
For example, we see Margo for the diva that she is every time she opens her mouth:
MARGO: Autograph fiends! They're not people, those little beasts who run in packs like coyotes
KAREN: They're your fans, your audience…
MARGO: They're nobody's fans! They're juvenile delinquents, mental detectives, they're nobody's audience, they never see a play or a movie, even, they're never indoors long enough!
When Margo pulls the diva routine at a party for Bill, Karen nails it:
MARGO: This is my house, not a theater! In my house you're a guest, not a director!
KAREN: Then stop being a star—stop treating your guests as your supporting cast.
However, there's plenty of dialogue that show us Margo's vulnerabilities about her career and her relationship:
MARGO: That's one career all females have in common whether we like it or not—being a woman. Sooner or later we've all got to work at it, no matter what other careers we've had or wanted... and, in the last analysis, nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed - and there he is. Without that, you're not a woman. You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings - but you're not a woman...slow curtain. The end.
Eve is all star-struck innocence when we first meet her. She's pretty convincing:
KAREN: I'm going to take you to Margo...
EVE: (hanging back) Oh, no...
KAREN: She's got to meet you.
EVE: No, I'd be imposing on her, I'd be just another tongue-tied gushing fan...
Her dialogue, though, begins to take a harder edge, then a threatening edge, until she's revealed as the evil schemer she really is. The next time we hear her gush over Karen and Margo, it's after she's tried to blackmail Karen, ruin Margo's career, seduce Bill and set a trap for Lloyd. It's the same innocent, humble voice, but this time we see right through it:
EVE: And to my first friend in the Theater, whose kindness and graciousness I shall never forget... Karen—Mrs. Lloyd Richards. And it was Karen who first brought me to one whom I had always idolized, and who was to become my benefactor and champion. A great actress and a great woman— Margo Channing.
They call it "acting."