The Great Acting Blog: "Noirish Project - Feature Film Announcement"

Noirish Project is the working title for a film noir feature film, which begins shooting next month. We will start off with a scripted premise, or a scripted Act One, and discover the rest of the film while we're making it, so that the journey of the characters becomes the journey of the filmmakers.

The film itself is about the nature of perception, how we interpret the signs which confront us, and how that interpretation changes as our desires change. At the heart of the film is an ambiguity of action, which I have coded as a film noir:

Naive, small-town boy Billy, has stolen the family jewels, and handed them over to small-time scheister, Jimmy, who in turn takes them to the local Fence to sell them for cash. When the jewels turn out to be fake, Jimmy barely escapes with his life, and returns to Billy empty-handed. Billy thinks Jimmy is screwing him over, and gets Jimmy to take him to the Fence to get the jewels back. However, when they discover the Fence has gone missing, they realise their journey has only just begun ….

The character Billy is totally dependent on Jimmy, because Jimmy is his only connection to the Fence, and therefore, must interpret everything Jimmy says or does in relation to his goal of getting the jewels back, and this interpretation is viewed through the prism of whatever context the character happens to find himself in.

The film will be dense with intricate, repetitive, formalised dialogue, which will serve to describe events, meaning that much of the action will take place “off-screen”,  so in the minds eye of the beholder. We'll be using static shots, of long duration, to let the intricate dialogue unfold in real-time. The general universe of the film, will again be low-grade, hopeless and listless, with scenes of intense expository dialogue intercut with scenes of inertia, and loss of focus on the central thrust of action. We will be shooting in black and white, on the streets of London, and structurally the film will encompass a road movie element, which will take us outside the city, and to various parts of the UK.

Once again, I will be producing aswell as acting in the film, a multitasking challenge which I have explored previously on this blog. This dual role can distract from performing the scene, and this distraction can lead to a loss of commitment, which in turn may result in a loss of energy. We're only talking about 1 or 2 percentage points, but still.... Anyway, in terms of the general performance style, we will be flipping between bravura, and something more disciplined, but always simple, forceful, and true. Overall, we will be paring back the performances to include only the essentials, which will lead to minimal, direct style.

This is very much the starting point for Noirish Project, and I'm sure it will expand and contract, simplify and complicate as work on it evolves, and may even change radically over time. Either way, I look forward to documentating the project here, over the coming months.

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The Great Acting Blog: "Actor As Individual Creative Artist"

The notion of the actor as an individual creative artist, is a notion I often advocate on this blog. That is; the actor taking responsibility for his work, defining an aesthetic, not “standing around in the dark, hoping to be picked”. The benefits of such an approach are myriad, not least among them is that the actor can build the body of work he wants, work with people he likes and who share his concerns, and also, the actor can maintain self-respect by being self-reliant and rewarding himself for his efforts. In short: the actor-auteur.

 

It's difficult to find a better exemplar for this approach than the great Steven Berkoff, who went and wrote and staged his own plays, and the plays of others, back when nobody was striking out on their own. Berkoff's aesthetics are his own, strikingly individualistic. And so it is then, I have decided to publish some take-aways, from Berkoff's recent five minute interview with the BBC, in order to further the conversation on this matter.

 

 

• Berkoff says that theatre matters, that it's the last form of communication between people, where you can express the most fundamental thoughts, ideas, and emotions, and do so instantaneously.

• Althought Berkoff writes and directs, he's says he is first and foremost an actor, because acting is something he can do immediately, and because he can also dip into other writers. If he was only a playwright, then he couldn't express himself in Shakespeare, Wilde, Sheridan etc.

• He says that acting, writing and directing are all part of the same tree.

• Says all actors should, at one time, be writers and directors – Shakespeare was an actor and a writer. He says it makes a richer compost if people are expressing the three elements together.

• Says that when you're directing yourself you're not actually directing yourself, but that the audience response, ie – their attitudes, their silence, their laughter, will tell you and teach you.

• Says he did one man plays because he didn't want to wait until he gathered a whole group of actors together, with attendent costs and logistics, casting, agents, and dealing with the temperaments of 8 or 10 actors. He says a one-man show is a unique communication – it gives the actor greater scope because he doesn't have to deal with other actors.

• Says his own plays are poetic and expressionistic, not naturalistic.

• Says “Total Theatre” is use of the imagination. Modern theatre has returned to Victorian theatre with huge sets and flying people. Says that Total Theatre is the ability of the actor to express the genius of the body, express the story without set.

• Says you need to be a good actor to play a villain. Says the best actors play villains.

  
  

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The Great Acting Blog: "The Future Of Acting"

“we have to be optimistic. The moment actors start thinking otherwise, they're dead. You simply have to believe you have a future.” - Peter O'Toole.

 

Peter O'Toole is a god of acting, he is a great actor, his performance in Becket is one of my favourite of all time, so when he speaks, I listen. However, I was quite shocked by the statement above, it never occurred to me that somebody as fabulously successful and bravura as O'Toole ever had to worry about having a future as an actor, certainly I would never have guessed that he would ever have had to place his chips on being optimistic.

 

I've never really liked “optimism”, it's similar to “being positive”, it just seems desperate, as though we are powerless and can only accomplish anything because of luck, or because of some outside force doing us a favour. I much prefer to try to see things as they really are, then plot a course of action in response to the conclusions of my analysis, and proceed from there. Optimism is linked to the frustrations of the casting process, where the actor is having to appeal to someone, whilst knowing there are dozens of other actors lined up behind him, waiting to do exactly the same thing – then after the casting, the actor is left hoping he is the one who will be picked, and if he is passed over on this occasion, then he must hope something else turns-up, and the process starts all over again. The actor copes with being demeaned in this way only because it is the accepted norm. The point is however, we can easily see how the actor is reduced to sitting around trying to be “optimistic” about the future. The trouble is, optimism is only a hop, skip and a jump away from wishful thinking, and wishful thinking is, we know, the opposite of hard thinking – but wishful thinking is what keeps people volutarily participating in a system which does not necessarily serve their own best interests, ie: “I have absolutely no control over what is happening to me, but I'm sure something'll turn up”. Wishful thinking is thinking that one day you'll have a career like, well, like Peter O'Toole, even though you may not possess the capability to actually make it happen. As I mentioned in my blog on Why Actors Quit, without a concrete and energising goal (and for the goal to be concrete and energizing, accomplishing it needs to be within the actor's power), the actor will not be able to overcome the obstacles he will inevitably encounter – he needs powerful reasons to keep fighting – optimism, positive thinking, wishful thinking, self-help mantras, vague hope, are not concrete, and they are not energizing, they may, like cigarettes, seem to offer momentary relief, but ultimately they are empty and lead to self-deception

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For my own view, the acting world has changed radically from the days when O'Toole was coming up. The last 10 years has seen an explosion in the number of people going into acting, and arguably there has been a dimunition in the volume of work available. Like the rest of our culture, getting a decent education and working hard is no longer enough. We are moving into an era when eveyone needs to be an entrepeneur, and that includes actors. Infact, in the case of acting, I think we will see the emergence of more and more “actor-auteurs”, wherby the actor is the unmistakable author of the work, such as Charlie Chaplin or Woody Allen. This will happen largely because of the reason I mentioned above, that there is just so much more traffic on the old career paths than there used to be and actors will be forced to be more innovative, but also it will happen because it's now doable: the cost of production has been coming down and down and down to the point where a professional quality feature film can be produced with a literally zero budget, and then we have the emergence of micro-distribution, where an audience can be found and nurtured. The actor doesn't need to believe he has a future, the actor needs to create one for himself.

The Great Acting Blog: "Actor As Auteur - Woody Allen"

 

 

“the idea of an actor who becomes the writer, the director, the true auteur, who places himself at the centre of that cinematic universe consistently through a number of films so that ultimately the persona does enter the culture” - Annette Insdorf on Woody Allen

 

They say the films of Woody Allen are an acquired taste, that not everybody likes them, certainly it's true that his films are not considered to be financially successfully in the conventional sense. As a kid, I loathed the Allen films I occasionally stumbled upon on television, finding them to be tedious and unfunny. It wasn't until years later that I became hooked on his irony, via Deconstructing Harry and especially the scene where he is arguing with his wife (played by Kirsty Alley) because she is the obstacle to him seeing more women. Allen has also been prolific, producing 48 films in 46 years, an impressive output, and even more so when we consider that Allen has made all of his films in the commercial sector and with complete artistic freedom, no financier goes anywhere near his productions – people talk about independent filmmkers, Woody Allen is the real thing.

However, I was piqued recently when I learned that Woody Allen doesn't take a break in between films, ie – when he finishes editing one film, he sits down at his typewriter the next day and starts to write the script for the next. No holiday, no chilling out in Ibiza, just a continuation of the work. This consistent work-rate does go someway to explaining the consistent quality and sheer volume of Allen's work, but does not tell us the full story. Afterall, what drives a man to write, direct and star in feature films for almost 50 years (and counting)? That's not an easy question to answer. Allen has little interest in critical acclaim, but clearly he must have a great love for his work – you cannot dedicate yourself to something in the way Allen does without loving it – he must love (and be pre-occupied by) going through the process of and completing a new work, and he must enjoy seeing the effect his work has upon an audience (although I don't believe that Allen is obssessed with popularity). We also know that Allen possesses a pre-occupiation with death, and has an overwhelming consciousness that life is finite, and therefore he may simply be trying to get as much as much as possible done before he goes. Another clue might be Allen's recent comment that he is still searching for the delivery of a cinematic masterpiece (many consider Manhatten to be one, but Allen himself does not), and so his prolific output could be the result of an obsession with mastering his art, an addiction to constantly refining and strengthening his aesthetic – certainly he has the creative engine for such an undertaking.

Whatever drives Woody Allen, his accomplishment has been astonishing, and is certainly something actors can look at as inspiring and worth aiming for. Woody Allen has worked his entire life on material he loves and with total artistic freedom. He understands that his performances and his skills and talents do not exist in order to flatter so-called “gatekeepers”, but to serve the particular film he is working on, and further explore whatever artistic lines of enquiry pre-occupy him at any given time. That doesn't seem like a bad way to live life .

The Great Acting Blog: "I Think I Let Him Play A F****y Vampire" - Mario Mentrup Q & A - Part 2

In part two of my Q and A with actor-filmmaker Mario Mentrup, he talks about the response to his feature film, I Do Adore, elaborates on his ideas about the art and biz of acting, and offers some advice to young actors. If you missed the first part of this Q and A, you can read it here.

TGAB: I suppose the notion of the actor-manager, or the notion of the actor being responsible for an overall aesthetic in the way, say, Chaplin was, appears to be out of fashion, or actors don’t think of themselves in this way anymore. Nowadays, it seems, actor are more like employees, submitting to the casting process, and they are brought into projects purely for functional reasons. As you say, there is suspicion towards actors who make their own stuff. In almost any other art form, or business, we admire those who strike out on their own, but that doesn’t apply to actors. Would you have a view on that? Or, what response did the fact that you acted in and directed your own feature, receive?

MM: Most actors see themselves as employees who just do what they are told. Their worker's pride is to serve. Especially male actors usually aim to come across as hard working men, but anyway the technicans get laid by all the cool ladies on set.  Actors are frustrated in all ways: No work, no play(with ladies or boys vice versa).To compensate they must pump iron or fuck their brains out like Sasha Grey- i mean it seems, that  fucking-for real is the new method of our time, isn't it, Michael Fassbend-me-over (his nickname in the blogosphere since "Shame") ?

Seriously, the big problem is that this business is so damn anti-intellectual.

Nobody dares to be a Chaplin or Buster Keaton or Charles Laughton or Orson Welles. Or  John Cassavettes. Or Jaques Tati or Jerry Lewis. Or Marlon Brando, apart from being this great crazy pain-in-the ass for the business or Coppola, this mad big man has directed a great Western: "One -eyed-Jack."

The Servants of today forgot or do not even know that the director's job is actually a new invention of the last century, and  the real tradition is the actor directing himself and his performance.

Since ages Shakespeare and Tchechov and a few new well -made-plays are the basis for actors to imitate "Art" and TV and Film is to earn money by imitating a cop and a nurse, that's it . Most Actors , here in Germany for example, would laugh in your face, if you would say that it is art what they are doing. Same with the directors. At this point i must say that the Pranks by American actors or performers who irritate their audiences is an interesting aspect; by doing they create at least  a conceptual piece of art.

Crispin Glover is an example for this, who, apart from his pranks ,is  financing and producing  his 35mm Celluloid Films and avoids any digitalisation; he is touring all over to screen his films in the tradition of a vaudevillan. Of course Vincent Gallo has to be mentioned, whose provocations among the Net and Magazine- Communities made him so special, that it got really fascinating watching him in "Essential Killing" transformed into a Taliban who spoke absolutely nothing  the entire film. Director Jerzy Skolimowsk said, it had been  Gallo’s idea not to say any word at all. Guys like Joaquin Phoenix or James Franco also try hard to be crazy Pranksters, but that is another and more boring story. Paz de La Huertas is still very interesting. I like her ad-campaign for the Lingerie- Company "Agent Provocateur" and on an advice that she should avoid playing nudes scenes in future she said : That's good advice, but I'm telling you, typecasting is typecasting. And I mean, look at Charlotte Rampling. She's a brilliant actress, and she's still getting naked for films. If I look like that at her age, I'll flaunt it.“

That is an actor-auteur. Balls. Balls, that is what most people in this job are missing.

I go over now to your question what response the fact that i acted in and directed my  own feature, received.

People simply avoided to talk to me about my acting in this film. They talked about everything else, a lot about the other actors to me.  Some times i heard "Beautiful Pictures , but where is the story?"My answer is, that the pics are the story and that it was in my script and that i developed the storyboard together with Volker Sattel. By saying this i only gained disbelief. But still, most of the time the crowd is fascinated and pleased, having seen a movie like this. And although i cannot think of going a tougher road these days, where we see the glory of Script-Doctor-companies and 27- or 48- hours -Filmproducing -competitions all around the globe, with the horrible result that Film became an empty  Party- event, there is bunch of actors and filmmakers who enjoy to go our ways. Christoph Bach, a TV- actor- award winner for his impersonation of  "Dutschke" and internationally known for his part in "Carlos" by Olivier Assayas is very into the idea that acting should be art and an actor should be an auteur. And Christoph is fighting like a  lion. I worked with him for my short film:"Der Adler ist fort" ("The eagle is gone") in 2010. We will continue working together. I can mention her  RP Kahl, an actor-auteur- director who already made some Films and who made the controversial "Bedways" last year, which is distributed worldwide.

Or Nicolette Krebitz, you British people will know her as the cover-girl of a NEW ORDER album back in 2001. She has made two features yet and as far as i know, she battles for her new one against all odds and Business.

TGAB: It seems the situation here is very similar to Germany. I have actually been laughed at by my peers for suggesting that they should think of themselves as artists, back in my younger days when I was more naive. Also, the notion of the director being a 20th century invention, is extremely important - actors didn't even used to rehearse together necessarily, the lead actor would rehearse alone then slot into the company at the last minute. . Fascinating aswell, that people didn't really talk about the fact you were the main character in I Do Adore - perhaps they take your acting for granted, whereas perhaps making a feature is a rarer accomplishment... You make many points that we could explore further. But i would like to look at the idea of the "actor-auteur". You mention your contemporaries, and you seem to be saying that if you've got balls and determination, it can be done. Having been through it yourself with I Do Adore, what advice would you give to a young actor reading this, who maybe is starting to think of himself as an artist, but is not necessarily in an environment which encourages this.

MM: First i suppose you are right concerning the response to my acting in my own film, the people seem to take it for granted.   It suddenly appears to me that i already could have become an "actor-auteur"  over 20 years ago with the first Feature i was starring in and i had co-written .But at those days me myself and the circumstances around me were not quite right. Now that  i shall give an advice to younger actors who start to think of themselves as Artists , i will switch  from gloomy to light now.

Yesterday an actor-friend of mine, who had been casted 8 years ago by old Guerilla Filmmaker Klaus Lemke and acted in 4 of his Features premiered his own written and directed Low Budget Feature- in which he also  is starring- in  Berlin and it was a blast. Of course  he had been nervous. In the process of nearly 2 Years he had screened slightly different versions of the film two or three times to me and some friends. I always told him quite the same: your film is crazy indeed, and of script-doctors will miss the plotline-and twist on minute so and so, but i saw funny and astonishing situations and refreshing ideas, who the fuck says you have to make 

a masterpiece? And maybe it is....

The premiere the night before yesterday was a blast, and he is very very happy.

Actually , and not to forget, a good way is to start or join a Theatre Group with Actor and Writer and Musician  and to focus on improvisational or new forms of theatre. A lot of groups are doing exactly this and even if you OFFOff doesn't mean you cannot get recognition. If you tend to listen to everybody or to harsh and frustrating  acting teachers or maybe your parents or your depressed colleagues  whoever, i would rather tell you to try find another profession. 

There is this guy , who had  a small but important part in my film.  In the 90s he had had quite a quick start at age 18 when he played the  Turkish-Berlin kid that he was in two main roles in a row. Then nothing worked out  for him for ages, 7, 8 years no film,  no nothing.  He tried to become  a director, no Filmschool wanted him. He did not give up. Meanwhile he was doing his thing in Metalbands, banging the guitar and his head and walking around with attitude. Finally 2005 a theatre asked him to direct a play. Since this day he writes and directs and acts in his own Theatre Play. This year his second self produced and written Microbudget  Feature will be premiered at Berlinale. Guess what, Volker Sattel is the cameraman. More advices?

More Advices, get content. Read. Interviews with actors you admire or do not admire read Novels, Autobios, Philosophy, Religion, Sociology, get into Mathematics, Metaphysics, even Esoterics. But read. Now as i write this down, i remember Werner Herzog, who did good challenging work the last years, is preaching this like a mantra: Read.

TGAB: I totally concur about reading. Has enormous impact.

I think watching movies away from the mainstream, or prescribed "independent films", is also very important for the actor.

Having watched your film, I could see in the aesthetics that it was made by cinephiles, ie - people with a broad and diverse knowledge of cinema, and an acute appreciation of it. In my experience, it is unusual for an actor to be a cinephile, and to want to make, let's say, auteur films. Here in London, few actors would even have heard of somebody like Godard, and it can be a real problem attracting actors to arthouse productions, especially when budgets are low. In my experience, a lot of actors are unnerved by anything other than industrial production processes. I wondered if the situation was similar in Germany? Also, I think screenings of important auteur films should be part of an actor's training, partly to awaken him to alternative forms. Would you have a view on that?

MM:

Hilarious statement, it reminds me of Susan Sonntags famous essay about "Camp" and her prognosis that the "method" of Marlon Brando would be seen as "Kitsch" in the future. Marlon Brando was very aware of this, but Klaus Kinski was overrated for sure. I mean did you see his directorial Actor-Auteur's Debut and last film ever: "PAGANINI"? Oh i can imagine Stewart Home, who claims to be inauthentic will love it for its Mega-Kitsch.Realism and Authenticity in Films is surely overrated like Lars von Trier is surely "kitsch"  nearby in the future. I am  a cinephile because i hung out more with filmmakers, filmbuffs, artists, writer and nerds than with actors. Nowaday i got some actor's friends and it is the directors who bore me now in freetime. And narrative Films bore me more and more. Since 10 years, I am more into experimental and Artfilmsor  in the films  and writings of Jean Epstein. The  hysterical craziness in  early Phillipe Garrell or Werner Schroeter Films, the dark eroticism of  Frans Zwartjes  or  a music label like  "Family Vineyard"  are more thrilling for me than to watch the next nominated OSCAR Film or Arthaus Flick. But that is obvious. These new Films are not made for me, i am neither a kid nor a senior You wrote: "screenings of important auteur films should be part of an actor's training, partly to awaken him to alternative forms." I totally agree, but it should be a must for producers in particular and directors too. And not only Films by Godard, Antonioni or Fassbinder but also Films by Dario Argento, Tinto Brass, Alain Robbe-Grillet (do you know: "Transeuropaexpress"?), Val Lewton, yes and why not Jean Rollin or Porn by Radley Metzger?  Fuck taste and what is a masterpiece anyway?  Eric Rohmer was once claiming to watch films and not "masterpieces".  Okay , Dario Argento is boring today but so is Scorsese. You wrote that actors are unnerved by anything other than industrial processes. Yes because they only think of feeding their divorced wifes or husbands and families and to keep their lifestyle established.

But i tell you such an actor was begging me, when we met at a dinner party, to write a part in one of my poor Films for him because he couldn’t stand the painful bullshit of acting in a TVseries, Main part actually, any longer.

I think i let him play a "fucky" vampire in an Jean Rollin inspired Movie.

If you would like to find out more about Mario's work, please visit www.mariomentrup.de

By the way, remember  MADE IN BRITAIN as being a motor for me a 19year old German kid secretly aiming to work for Film?  My friend Stewart Home, a London-based writer and novelist just titled movies by Alan Clarke like "Meantime", "Scum" "Made in Britain"  as luvvie style-staging. (here in  a hilarious bad review on Steve Mcqueen's HUNGER  which i didn't watch out of sheer ignorance: http://stewarthomesociety.org/blog/archives/508)