The Great Actin Blog: "Fear Of Failure"

Commitment is a tricky thing. At the moment just before we need to commit, our minds suggest all kinds of alternatives as preferable to the thing we are about to commit to. One of the reasons commitment is so hard, is because we are putting our good opinion of ourselves on the line: if it all goes wrong then there are no excuses, and it hurts. Note how distraught elite sportspeople get when,  despite giving absolutely everything, they lose a big match. Rarely do we see them shrug during such a moment, they would only shrug if they  didn’t care, and hadn’t spent themselves. However, when we fear failure, we don’t give  a proper effort or we don’t try at all, so as to avoid the pain failure may bring. The trouble with this approach is, the failure becomes self-fulfilling, because our lack of effort ensured, from the outset, that we would fail.

Creative endeavours are rarely, if ever, as cut and dry as the sports field, and, in acting, the symptoms of fear of failure take very, very subtle forms, so subtle infact, that sometimes they may even be mistaken for great acting. What I’m talking about here is undercutting the scene with a cutesy bit of humour, or with some “characterization”, or a bit of emotion, or even something oh-so ironic. This usually happens when something unforeseen moves the actor internally, something rears itself which had not been part of the actor’s cosy, little plan for playing the scene. What was this terrible unforeseen horror? Why, it was the truth of the moment of course. The courageous actor, doesn’t flinch from that moment, instead, he grapples with it no matter how unnerved by it he may be, he sticks to his task ruthlessly, and does the best he can. The phoney actor denies the truth of the moment, he tries to defuse the potential of the unplanned, he tries to suffocate it,  for he must always be seen to be in control, superior to the scene, superior to the audience, and cannot bear anything which threatens that control, threatens that feeling of superiority. He tries to masque the truth with a lie, he tries to render the truth imperceptible. But this phoney bit of behaviour, often extorts a moment of admiration from the audience, and well it might, for that was it’s original intention, that is, the actor uses a bit of cleverness to distract the audience from the fact that he is not flawless.This actor is scared, scared of criticism,  scared of being hurt, and protects himself with empty trickery. The truthful actor is like the sportsman, he gives everything even though he knows that by the end, exhausted and drenched in sweat, he may still come up short.

 

The truthful actor commits fully despite his fear. This is called courage.

The Great Acting Blog: "Robert De Niro Notes"

 

De Niro offers practical advice here, which means alot coming from an actor of his stature, and especially him I suppose, because so much theoretical voodoo has grown up around his work, in order to explain away his performances - the truth is, acting requires skill and technique and a little bit of aptitude. For me, the central theme of De Niro's view, is that it's about getting the work done and getting on with doing it, aswell as respecting the scene at hand.  

 

 

• De Niro says acting is not about neuroses and playing on your neuroses, it's about doing the character - "the tasks of the character".
• He says don't go about it as though the character was you and how you would do it - it's about the character.
• Be faithful to the text/script. 
• Says it's about script analysis, seeing something for what it is, breaking the play down - not fictionalising but taking whatever you get from the analysis, and making your choices based on what you pick up from the analysis - "the talent is in the choices" - Stella Adler.
• "Earn the right to play the character" -  make it your own and feel comfortable in doing it by researching the character, try to be close to the character, so if you have to improv or ad lib, you have an idea about what the character would do in that situation.
• Acting is about having an action, like "to sell something."
• He says you've got to get up and do it - the sooner you get to knowing you've got to get up and do it, the sooner you'll do it.
• He says he had a problem when he was a young actor : he was afraid to make a move "I have to feel it, and I have to do this".- but says you've got to sometimes jump in - "if i jumped in I arrive at that place" (where he is playing the scene) - whereas before he thought he had to do all sorts of weird preparation before he could arrive at that point.
• Says, don't pamper yourself, you've got to get out there and do it, and if you make a mistake, you do it again.
• Never comment on the character, never put the character down.
• While working on Mean Streets with Scorsese, they improvised scenes, but it was set and structured by the time they did it in front of camera.
• For Godfather 2, he studied and studied Brando's performance to find the boundaries.
• Says he doesn't like to expend a lot of energy on the set: does the scene then goes back home and rests.
• Says the last thing he wants to do is worry about the scene, because then his action becomes "to worry!"
• Says Scorsese has great respect for actors, which is important to get the best out of them.
• Listening is essential in acting - says actors have problems just listening, trusting themselves, but if there's nothing to do don't do anything.
• Says the notion that if actors look at the dailies it creates a problem, is a myth. Doesn't subscribe to it.
• Says he and Scorsese understand each other, that's why they're able to work with each other so many times and have a good time.. Says they have the same sensibility, says you have to be very honest with each other, about how you feel about things.
• Says he always wanted to direct, that's why he made Bronx Tale.
• Says do authentic work, regardless of how you think people may react. That'll distinguish you from other people.

The Great Acting Blog: "Robert De Niro Notes"

 

De Niro offers practical advice here, which means alot coming from an actor of his stature, and especially him I suppose, because so much theoretical voodoo has grown up around his work, in order to explain away his performances - the truth is, acting requires skill and technique and a little bit of aptitude. For me, the central theme of De Niro's view, is that it's about getting the work done and getting on with doing it, aswell as respecting the scene at hand.  

 

• De Niro says acting is not about neuroses and playing on your neuroses, it's about doing the character - "the tasks of the character".
• He says don't go about it as though the character was you and how you would do it - it's about the character.
• Be faithful to the text/script. 
• Says it's about script analysis, seeing something for what it is, breaking the play down - not fictionalising but taking whatever you get from the analysis, and making your choices based on what you pick up from the analysis - "the talent is in the choices" - Stella Adler.
• "Earn the right to play the character" -  make it your own and feel comfortable in doing it by researching the character, try to be close to the character, so if you have to improv or ad lib, you have an idea about what the character would do in that situation.
• Acting is about having an action, like "to sell something."
• He says you've got to get up and do it - the sooner you get to knowing you've got to get up and do it, the sooner you'll do it.
• He says he had a problem when he was a young actor : he was afraid to make a move "I have to feel it, and I have to do this".- but says you've got to sometimes jump in - "if i jumped in I arrive at that place" (where he is playing the scene) - whereas before he thought he had to do all sorts of weird preparation before he could arrive at that point.
• Says, don't pamper yourself, you've got to get out there and do it, and if you make a mistake, you do it again.
• Never comment on the character, never put the character down.
• While working on Mean Streets with Scorsese, they improvised scenes, but it was set and structured by the time they did it in front of camera.
• For Godfather 2, he studied and studied Brando's performance to find the boundaries.
• Says he doesn't like to expend a lot of energy on the set: does the scene then goes back home and rests.
• Says the last thing he wants to do is worry about the scene, because then his action becomes "to worry!"
• Says Scorsese has great respect for actors, which is important to get the best out of them.
• Listening is essential in acting - says actors have problems just listening, trusting themselves, but if there's nothing to do don't do anything.
• Says the notion that if actors look at the dailies it creates a problem, is a myth. Doesn't subscribe to it.
• Says he and Scorsese understand each other, that's why they're able to work with each other so many times and have a good time.. Says they have the same sensibility, says you have to be very honest with each other, about how you feel about things.
• Says he always wanted to direct, that's why he made Bronx Tale.
• Says do authentic work, regardless of how you think people may react. That'll distinguish you from other people.

The Great Acting Blog: "Poetic Acting"

Poetic acting is expressive but not expository, it is intense but with a sense of ease, it's minimal, but most importantly, it seeks to express something in-the-moment, but which cannot always be explained away. On a practical level, the actor commits to doing the actions of the scene, and does not worry about the outcomes. This approach can lead to facialexpressions, small movements, bits of emotion, which the actor may not even realise he was doing until after he has seen his performance on screen (he may never realise them on stage). These unconscious, unfettered, unplanned expressions are the poetry of acting. Poetic acting is very different to expository acting, or “doing a character”, whereby the actor consciously and rationally designs his performance, explaining the character with thought-out detail, and detail which may not even be germane to the scene at hand. Designing a performance is not necessarily the same as including those things which are essential to creating the illusion of character – for example; if one were to play a hunchback, a prosthetic hunch may be employed.

 

Poetic acting gives expression to human experience which cannot be dealt with in any other way - for example; if, in the scene, the actor tries to conceal a difficult emotion (perhaps has to tell a lie in the scene), the repressed energy may express itself, for example, as a displacement, such as the actor handling an object or adjusting an item of his clothing. These small actions may not necessarily “mean” something in terms of the literal plot of the scene, but are the symptom of some deeper movement within the actor. These wonderful, subtle expressions may never happen for the by-design actor, because he is controlling everything to the extent that he doesn't allow deeper movements to occur within himself, and so there is no poetic spin-off during his performance.

The full implications of a poetic performance may not be fully understood by an audience on an immediate, conscious level, but the performance does create a sense of harmony (even when the action is tumultuous). That's why the poetic actor produces richer results than the by-design actor. The by-design actor may produce a performance which is more immediately impressive, may at first appear to be “natural”, but it is usually generalised and superficial, and the effect dissipates fairly quickly, whereas the poetic actor's performance may at first give the impression that nothing is really happening, and his effect may creep up on the audience almost imperceptibly, but all of those organically created moments of his performance add-up to something deeply affecting, they leave us unsure, they hang in our minds long after the action has finished,lodging themselves there (even if it is only certain moments of the performance which do this). 

I intend to use the poetic form of acting for my feature film, Noirish Project, and I do not mean my own perfromance only, but the performances of all the actors in the film. The camera-work and editing will be pared back, and the script is flat and minimal, with scenes where the characters are hanging around and waiting. It is out of these seemingly empty situations that I hope this poetic form of acting will emerge to create wonderful, unplanned expressions, with the minimalism of the film giving them centre stage.

The Great Acting Blog: "Strive To Be Great"

A forthcoming Daniel Day-Lewis performance is always turned into a huge event by the media - we were told his turn in PT Anderson's There Will Be Blood was the performance to define cinematic acting for all time. Then there is the psychophantic reporting about the lengths Day-Lewis went in order to “research the character”, and that he “stays in character” between takes. All of this stuff of course, has helped to create a mythology around Day-Lewis, a mystique, a narrative, and which has become self-perpetuating. When Day-Lewis quit the run of Hamlet early, claiming that the death of his own father weighed too greatly on his performances (others juicily claimed he actually saw the ghost of his father on stage), this only added to his legend. Whereas most actors would have been branded incompetent and unreliable for quitting, for Day-Lewis this was seen as an example of just how far he is willing to go to give a truthful performance. His failure is held up as his commitment to his art (quitting is a sign of commitment in our topsy-turvy modern world). On another occasion, Day-Lewis disappeared to make shoes in Italy somewhere, and again this was cited as evidence of his commitment; he'd spent so long in the blazing furnace of creation, he just needed to get away from it all, and make shoes. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect about all this however, is the fact that Day-Lewis has been able to maintain the intensity of the attention on his work for so long - the only comparable actor I can think of is Robert De Niro during the 70s and early 80s, a far better actor than Day-Lewis, but focus on his work has faded as his career has worn on.*

 

Whatever you may think of Day-Lewis, the sheer ambition of his acting choices is an example, and should be an inspiration. Few other actors these days strive to give something extra, something remarkable, in the way that Day-Lewis does. The great explorations of acting, the will to deliver a performance of force, the longing to express, the love of art, the desire to thrill, seems to be broadly lacking in contemporary acting. Any actor who strives to be an artist is sneered at, brand names on the CV are all that count, few take the technical and aesthetic aspects of acting seriously. That's generally why acting and actors are less exciting than they were, less fun, and in turn, less loved.

Actors now see the audience as an appendage to their career, rather than the object of it. This has been evidenced in recent years by the spate of incidents in theatres where actors have broken out of character and told the audience to shut-up whenever their mobile phone has rung or when they eat crisps. I can't help but feel that in the old days, actors like Donald Wolfitt or Anew Macmaster would have rendered such distractions irrelevant and quelled any noise by the sheer greatness of their performances. Infact, Harold Pinter tells the story about when he was a young actor touring Shakespeare in MacMaster's company, they were doing Othello in some Irish village, and the 2000 strong audience were drunk and bawdy to the extent that the actors on stage couldn't hear eachother speak, that is, until MacMaster entered, and who, by the end of the play, held the audience in rapt silence – you could hear a pin drop – but he didn't ask or tell them to be quiet, he stunned them with his brilliance. That's what we should be aiming for in our work.

 

 

 

* Day-Lewis has a much lower output than De Niro, making only 6 films in the last 15 years, while De Niro has made 44 in the same timeframe. This may go some way to explain why the intensity of attention on Day-Lewis' work has endured.

The Great Acting Blog: "Non-Actors, Employee-Actors, & Artist-Actors"

 

“with professional actors they have an imaginary in between you and them. In other words they have some model in their minds about how to act, or how someone did it before, or some techniques, visual or physical, they can use....it's as if you are writing a book and you are two” - Albert Serra

 

Serra is a filmmaker who primarily works with non-actors. He says he doesn't like professional actors, and the above quote gives us a clue as to why. What Serra is really doing here, is criticising actors in general for a lack of creativity, or more precisely, a lack of in-the-moment creativity: actors work-out in advance exactly how they are going to do the scene, down to each gesture, each facial movement, each inflection, and simply implement this preparation regardless of what is actually happening in the scene as it unfolds (and regardless of what the other actors in the scene are doing). This approach makes it that much harder for the director to work with the actor, because the actor has already set their performance in stone. The model of acting Serra talks about, is the model of the employee-actor, whose goal is simply to rubber stamp a performance of complacent, base professionalism, and where every effort is made to explain the character rather than create organically, because the greatest terror is that anything the actor does may be even slightly misunderstood, every I dotted and every T crossed to absolute death, and any semblance of art is eliminated mercilessly. Of course, all this leads to the bland, meaningless, presentation-without-mistakes type of performance which so dominates contemporary acting, and which so irks filmmakers like Serra.

 

There is the non-actor and there is the employee-actor, but there is also a third kind of actor: the artist-actor. This actor arrives at the scene with nothing, and creates something out of that nothing. For sure there is preparation – memorising lines, understanding what is happening in the scene, practice – but artist-actors don't merely re-produce this preparation and call it “performance”, they use preparation as a tool for liberating their creativity, the preparation is a means and not an end. The artist-actor responds to what is actually happening in the scene, and responds regardless of their preparation. They come to the work ready to discover. And the work that is produced with this approach is intense, various, intriguing, and true. Also, by creating in-the-moment, we are closer to the actors source personality, as oppose to the layers and layers of guff piled on in the name of technique, and being close to the source leads to a more vivid performance. Artist-actors don't bring things to the scene, they simply try to understand what the scene is, and fit themselves into it. The employee-actor almost ignores the scene entirely, and sees the whole project as an excuse to showcase themselves (“my character wouldn't do that”), and in a sense, this is what Serra is referring to when he says; “it's as if you are writing a book and you are two”: the actor is, without invite, bringing things in from outside the original conception of the project, which effectively creates a rival to the original conception, trying to turn it into something else, hence two authors. The artist-actor is flexible enough, sensitive enough, and good enough, to respond to whichever way the director may want to work the scene. The artist-actor does not want to co-author but serve the form. For actor-artists, aesthetic truth is the goal, and organic creation is the way to attain it. These artist-actors struggle enormously in a world where little more is expected of the actor than having the right colour hair.

 

The mistake Serra makes (and others do too) is to speak of actors in general – he is effectively saying all actors are the same, and take the same approach. Clearly this is not true. It is a shame that a filmmaker of Serra's calibre sees it this way. More broadly speaking though, it is utterly crucial that we recognise and endorse artist-actors, otherwise they will disappear in that gap between employee-actors and non-actors, and the art of acting will disappear with them.

The Great Acting Blog: "Mindboggling - Tony Curtis in The Boston Strangler"

Tony Curtis plays Albert DeSalvo, who is picked up by the cops on a breaking and entering charge, but when the judge rules Albert is not of his right mind, he is institutionalised where psychiatrists diagnose him with a multiple personality disorder. Chief Detective John S Bottomly (played by Henry Fonda) discovers him there, and all the signs are that Albert is infact the perpetrator of the 13 murders Bottomly has so far failed to solve. Bottomly wants to interrogate Albert,  to prove conclusively that he is the murderer, and put him behind bars. Trouble is, Albert's disorder means that he has literally two totally separate people enclosed within his one body – the vulnerable, simple,honest, blue collar family man, and the cold, serial killer, with each taking it in turns to use the body. Albert the family man has no knowledge or  rememberance of the murders, and further, his survival depends on his absolute certainty of his innocence. If he is interrogated, the doctors say, and Albert the family man is forced to acknowledge Albert the strangler, then this may “just push him over the edge”, and keep him institutionalised for the rest of his life, probably catatonic. Bottomly decides that this would be the next best thing to putting Albert behind bars, and sets up a series of interviews with him, to get to the truth.

During the interviews, Curtis begins to explain what he was doing on the day of each of the murders, and here the film employs flashback, to show us what Curtis is telling us. Curtis' false memories are innocent, however, they are gradually invaded by the true memories of the murders; on one occasion he hears a disembodied scream while his memory tells him he's at work, on another, he thinks he was building a dolls house for his daughter but this is intercut with a strangled corpse. So these flashbacks become a mish-mash of what Curtis thinks he remembers happening, and what actually happened (ie – the murders). Scene by scene, Fonda pushes harder with his questioning, and Curtis digs deeper within himself to arrive at the truth.

Of course, there are the plastic elements which aid Curtis' perfromance; the false nose, the brown contact lenses, the distinctive, working-class, Boston accent (more recently employed in Scorsese's Departed). Then the directorial conceit of using flashback does a lot of the heavy lifting for Curtis – he need only show us intense concentration, and the visuals will do the rest. However, Curtis' performance really becomes very special in the final scene, when he at last comes face to face with who he really is. The memories of past murder begin to flood Curtis' mind, dominating  the false, innocent memories. However, the film, at this point, eshcews the use of flashback, and the whole thing is expressed through Curtis' performance. At the first flash of realisation, Curtis whimpers and leaps out of his chair, moving to the wall and leaning his whole body against it, as if to prevent himself from falling into an abyss. Then, he walks  while still leaning against the wall, and feeling his way across it with his hands, as though blindfolded. There is a moment when Curtis makes one last attempt to deny the truth; he clenches his hands to his head, as though trying to refuse the memories entry to his mind, repressing them. However, all this effort is to no avail, as Curtis is finally consumed by his muderous past, and begins to relive it, re-enacting each murder, the victims are invisible this time of course.

The miracle of Curtis' perfromance here, is that by using his body, he reveals the inside of his mind.

The Great Acting Blog: "Exquisite - Tony Curtis In Monte Carlo Or Bust"

Monte Carlo Or Bust is a wonderful, light fluffy affair, and contains an ensemble cast which includes the delights of the likes of Terry-Thomas, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. It's about an international car rally, where the drivers must reach certain check-points stationed across Europe, and of course, all sorts of chicanery ensues, on and off the track so to speak. Curtis plays Chester Schofield, an energetic, idealistic, if slightly nerdy, American, set in contrast to Terry-Thomas' spoilt, upper class trustrafarian, who prefers to knobble the opposition rather than compete with them fairly and squarely.

Curtis' performance is an absolute joy – when we first see him he is wearing spectacles and a dandyish check coat, listening to jazz as he bops his way towards an exasperated Terry-Thomas - we are charmed straight away. But crucially, he is not commenting on what he is doing, what wins us over is his total commitment and honesty, and that he seems to have made an acting choice he genuinely relishes. With Curtis here, the character is always present, this is mostly because he is doing some old school characterization work which we don't see very much anymore because too many actors these days think they something to say, or if we do see it, then it's done in an oh-so ironic way, the actor appears to separate himself from the characterization, as though mocking it. Curtis is living it, and having a good time too, which in turns creates an enriching experience for the audience.

Curtis' performance however, is at it's most sublime in his scenes with Susan Hampshire, who plays his love interest. There is a moment when he sees her for the first time, and he clumsily removes his glasses, and then the camera cuts away to Hampshire, and when it comes back to Curtis, he is holding his glasses in his hand and sort of pressing them against his chin, as if he is trying to masque the embarassment his immediate feelings for Hampshire are causing him, but it also shows us the awe in which he holds her. Curtis is able to express complex feelings simply, and all in a brief moment. Throughout his scenes with Hampshire, Curtis nevers indicates to us how “sensitive” and “deep” he is, he never tries to find a little moment near the end of a scene where he lets his lip quiver so we can feel sorry for him, that loathsome practice which seems to be so common these days. There is no cutsiness from Curtis (nor from Hampshire, to be fair), he simply plays the scenes, commiting to the actions, doing them as fully and honestly as he can, and consequently, his relationship with Hampshire becomes moving and fascinating to us, and all this in what is apparently a souffle comedy.

Tony Curtis is an exqusite actor, if I hadn't written about Monte Carlo Or Bust, I could easily have written about The Defiant Ones or Sweet Smell Of Success (and I may still do so) to name but two. Sure he has movie star charisma, but he also has generosity, he wants to give the audience something. He's honest. He is totally commited to the scene he is playing, and this is turn energises him, and helps him to use his personality fully. He also enjoys acting, and enjoys the acting choices he makes in scenes. Tony Curtis acts from the heart, and, as they say, what comes from the heart, goes to the heart, and I for one am thankful that.

Tony Curtis, what an example.

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

.

 

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: "Actors Need To Reclaim Acting - Lessons From EA Dupont's Piccadilly"

 

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EA Dupont's silent era masterpiece, Piccadilly, is set in a fashionable London nightclub, and is about an exotic dancer, played by Anna May Wong, whose routines lead her to become the toast of Jazz-Age London. She also becomes the erotic obssesion of the her boss Valentine Wilmot (played by Jameson Thomas), which in turn, pushes the nose of his former lover and star dancer, Mabel Greenfield (Gilda Gray), out of joint, all of which sets off a chain of events leading to tragedy. Piccadilly features some simply breathtaking cinematography, which your eyes will hardly believe, and if anyone is any doubt about the credentials of early British cinema, then they need not look any further than Dupont's film. Joyously, we are also treated to an early Charles Laughton performance, credited as “nightclub diner”, where he complains about a dirty plate. However, it was by the acting generally, that I was piqued – I would not be exaggerating to say that I have simply never seen so many masterful performances all in the same film.

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I could single out the sheer intensity of King Hou Chang, but that would be unfair to the provocative and piquant Anna May Wong, and to the grace and technical execellence of Thomas and Gray. The acting in this film is beautiful. The performances are made up of small moments possessed with a perfectly distilled meaning, serving a very precise purpose, and executed with a consummate control. In some respects, a silent film gives us a clearer view to the actor's work, similar to when watching a subtitled foreign film, because we don't have potential distraction of the sound of what the actors are saying, and which is particularly distracting when the actor speaks the lines falsly. Certainly in Piccadilly, some of the power of the performances would have been lost if we had been able to hear what the actors were saying – it was just such a rich experience observing their movements and facial expressions. As with all great performances, we are treated to witnessing the truth of the actor's personality, and that was no different in this film, where the honesty and lack of self-consciousness meant that the actors revealed themselves, made themselves vulnerable, which, in turn, rendered the film's love triangle truly heartbreaking – a human being defending their position with everything they've got, is indeed a powerful sight. In the end, the performances in Piccadilly attain the highest point in acting; they show us that the human face can be poetic.

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All of which left me confused. Surely the acting in silent cinema was no match for our all-dominant contemporary “naturalism”? Aren't pre-mid 20th century actors supposed to be false, “theatrical”, mechanical? And yet, Piccadilly, and other films from that era, have proved to be such rich viewing experiences, especially when compared to today's work, so much of which seems trivial, cynical, superficial and self-serving (I've found this to be even more the case in theatre). It's generally thought that acting changed around the middle of the last century, that what had gone on before that period was no longer acceptable - a new, apparently idealistic new generation of teachers and directors, ushered in a new modern era of “realism”. It's hard to see how acting has changed in that period, but what is certainly true is that actors have become completely dominated by directors, and subservient to teachers, even to the extent that the actor himself is marginalised within his own performance (eg – directors or teachers getting the acclaim for great work done by an actor). More broadly speaking, the stature of actors has diminished, with less of them now in control of companies, or even being perceived of as capable of running companies (would the establishment of an institution such as the National Theatre be put in an actors hands today?). Donald Wolfitt set up his own touring company because nobody would give him a chance to play Hamlet, and in early cinema, there was no director: the cinematographer took are of the pictures, and the actors took care of the acting. Could it be then, that there never was anything wrong with the way acting was done, but that it was attacked by directors and teachers in order to create the space for them to have careers, ie – directors and teachers shove actors off their own work, then take responsibility for it, and, voila!

 

Masterpieces like Piccadilly, show us that there never was anything wrong with the way acting was done, infact, there is strong evidence to suggest that perfromances were (and are) generally stronger when the actor left alone to get on with his work, in the best way he sees fit, taking responsibility for all aspects of it.

The Great Acting Blog: "Make Choices You Enjoy - John Malkovich In Colour Me Kubrick"

Malkovich is one of those American actors who is regarded as a real actor, which is to say, he actually can act, he's an artist, he's in it because he wants to be a great actor, or make a great contribution, he's certainly an actor who gives something a little bit extra, he's always provocative, always intense. He's also one of those actors for whom we feel that the calibre of material offered to him is rarely commensurate to his talent – Malkovich has never had a great run of performances in the way his compatriots from the generation preceding his did, namely Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro. But then perhaps Malkovich has never quite been the Hollywood star in the same way either. Infact, off the top of my head, it's difficult to really name any of his Hollywood films. However, his output in Europe seems to be more distinctive, where he has worked with Raoul Ruiz, Manoel de Olveira, Michelangelo Antonioni and Liliana Cavani. Malkovich though, is an actor of such strength, that he can take fairly mediocre material, and render it compelling. And Colour Me Kubrick is an example of this.

The film itself is a light, fluffy affair, loose in parts, piquant in others, and had the actor at the centre of the film been of anything less than Malkovich's standard, then Colour Me Kubrick would have been a very ordinary film indeed. But there Malkovich is, delivering perhaps one of the great underrated screen performances of recent years (this is certainly an example of an actor's work receiving less than due attention because it was done in an unfeted film – an actor cannot enjoy success unless the production he is working on, is successful as a whole – there's moral in there somewhere). Colour Me Kubrick is based on the true story of Alan Conway, who went around passing himself off as filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. It wasn't that Conway looked anything like Kubrick, he didn't, but he was able to get away with it because Kubrick's reclusiveness meant that few people were certain of what he looked like. And Malkovich goes to town as Conway, playing him as a cheap, camp, bedsitland, alcoholic – imagine one of those middle aged men wearing a brown mac and tatty old baseball cap with a cheap bottle of vodka in his pocket, and you've got him . Scene by scene, he wins the confidence of wannabe showbiz types by appealing to their vanity; he promises a young rock group work on his new film, and so they buy him drinks (“rich people don't carry cash”), and on another occasion, he beds a young costumer designer after promising to hook him up with his Hollywood connections, and on another, he agrees to invest in a swanky restaurant in order to save it from bankruptcy, offering to get his Hollywood legal team to “look over the figures”. Perhaps Conway's most audacious con, was of a light entertainer, who, in real life had been Joe Longthorne but was coded as Lee Pratt in the film. After attending a party at Pratt's house, Conway tells him he will help him crack Vegas, and the con starts in a scene where Malkovich delivers a great piece of bravura acting – waving his arms about, and speaking in a sort of unmodulated bellow: he informs Pratt that he will speak to “Moe Green in Vegas”, and, “Sheckie in New York”, and get the ball rolling. It is a sensational acting choice, hilarious, and disquietingly true, the film is worth watching if only for this scene. The net result however, is that he takes up residence in a luxury hotel, all at Pratt's expense of course.

The film is choc full of these wonderful little moments created by Malkovich. Playing a character who is himself acting, offers rich performance possibilities. It's true that Malkovich, now in his late 50s, is a master craftsman. He is innately compelling, with his intensity, intelligence, dry humour and unusual persona. His work is always precise, always simple, never adding unnecessary detail, but always striving to express the scene, and he makes it seem effortless in Colour Me Kubrick, as all great actors do. Essentially however, at the heart of this performance, is the fact that Malkovich is making acting choices he enjoys, choices which interest him, which touch off his imagination, and which ultimately energise him and fuel him through the scenes. The alternative to making enjoyable choices, is making choices we do not enjoy, and this typically happens when we act to please the director – whether that's to give the director what we think he wants in order to make him like us, or whether it's to shore up an insecure director by doing it his way (insecure directors typically talk too much, and want to control how the actor does the scene) – the irony is, most actors make choices in order to please others, which is why so much contemporary acting is joyless and stingy. Malkovich doesn't fall into that trap – and as a result, we the audience, are delighted by a performance which is properly energised, vivid, various, and, well, fun.

 

Make choices you enjoy.

 

To quote the great David Mamet; “You not only have a right to choose actions which are fun, you have a responsibility – that's your job as an actor”.

 

The Great Acting Blog: "Actor As Artist - Makiko Esumi In Hirokazu Koreeda's Maborosi"

http://www.hot-idol.com/tag/esumi-makiko I was completely stunned this week when I saw an astonishing masterpiece by Japanese auteur, Hirokazu Koreeda, called Maborosi. The film centres on Yumiko and Tamio,a couple who seem to live in a quiet marital happiness, until tragedy strikes when Tamio inexplicably takes his own life. For sure, Maborosi is not the first film to deal with this subject, however, no other film deals with it in the way Maborosi does. Shot with a quiet formalism, using largely static, frontal master shots, Maborosi does not attempt to explain away Tamio’s death, there is no expository trail for Yumiko to follow in order to come to terms with her loss. Instead, the film barely makes any attempt to find the reasons for suicide at all, instead, it focusses on Yumiko’s efforts to get on with her life. And herein lies the miracle of Maborosi; that although it does not deal with Tamio’s death explicitly (until near the end, when in extreme long shot Yumiko confesses she doesn’t understand why Tamio did it), infact, most of the film contains scenes of Yumiko getting on with, and enjoying, her life, we always sense that the burden of Tamio’s death is with her. Much of this is done through the reminiscence of objects which Yumiko and Tamio shared, such as a bicycle or a string of beads, and through the lighting. However, at the centre of it all, is a heartbreaking performance by Makiko Esumi as Yumiko. When I say heartbreaking, I don’t mean that Esumi was trying to be heartbraking – that is what we see in so much English language acting these days: actors lining up to pour out their hearts, crocodile tears streaming down their faces in order to get noticed, endlessly balling their eyes out; “oh look how sensitive I am, look how I feel”, the truth is, this actor feels nothing other than the pangs of their own vanity – no, Esumi is heartbreaking because of her absence of tears, because of her restraint, because of her grace in the face of adversity. These days, in British culture at least, we have enthroned our feelings, as though whatever we feel at any moment is the only thing that matters, and that just letting it all hang loose is oh so brave – but it’s not brave, it’s cowardly, and not only is it cowardly, it’s tedious, meaningless, selfish, and createsliars as we compete to be the “most emotional”. Esumi, through her minimalism, reminds us that the emotion is supposed to take place in the audience and not in the actor. There is one moment, during a visit to Tamio’s old work place, where she turns and looks, it is a moment of such terrible sorrow, and yet Esumi’s face is blank, she barely moves, and there is no music to cue us in emotionally. Essentially, we the audience, project our own pain onto Esumi, and, in the process, we are cleansed (if only temporarily). Esumi’s minimalism matches that of filmmaker Koreeda’s for sure, Maborosi is one of those rare examples of when an actor’s aesthetic has integrated perfectly with the director’s, and an astonishing whole is created as a result. I can only think Koreeda handpicked Esumi for this particular film. Esumi is also a model, and although it’s difficult to say how much her model experience has impacted her acting, we may speculate that because of her modelling she is more used to being passive, as model’s are objectified, which makes her a natural for a role like Yumiko, whereas acting is traditionally about subjectivity and taking action. I should think though, her reserved expression is something which lies in her nature to a certain extent, and not something she grafted onto the performance.

The Great Acting Blog: "Actor As Artist - Makiko Esumi In Hirokazu Koreeda's Maborosi"

http://www.hot-idol.com/tag/esumi-makiko I was completely stunned this week when I saw an astonishing masterpiece by Japanese auteur, Hirokazu Koreeda, called Maborosi. The film centres on Yumiko and Tamio,a couple who seem to live in a quiet marital happiness, until tragedy strikes when Tamio inexplicably takes his own life. For sure, Maborosi is not the first film to deal with this subject, however, no other film deals with it in the way Maborosi does. Shot with a quiet formalism, using largely static, frontal master shots, Maborosi does not attempt to explain away Tamio’s death, there is no expository trail for Yumiko to follow in order to come to terms with her loss. Instead, the film barely makes any attempt to find the reasons for suicide at all, instead, it focusses on Yumiko’s efforts to get on with her life. And herein lies the miracle of Maborosi; that although it does not deal with Tamio’s death explicitly (until near the end, when in extreme long shot Yumiko confesses she doesn’t understand why Tamio did it), infact, most of the film contains scenes of Yumiko getting on with, and enjoying, her life, we always sense that the burden of Tamio’s death is with her. Much of this is done through the reminiscence of objects which Yumiko and Tamio shared, such as a bicycle or a string of beads, and through the lighting. However, at the centre of it all, is a heartbreaking performance by Makiko Esumi as Yumiko. When I say heartbreaking, I don’t mean that Esumi was trying to be heartbraking – that is what we see in so much English language acting these days: actors lining up to pour out their hearts, crocodile tears streaming down their faces in order to get noticed, endlessly balling their eyes out; “oh look how sensitive I am, look how I feel”, the truth is, this actor feels nothing other than the pangs of their own vanity – no, Esumi is heartbreaking because of her absence of tears, because of her restraint, because of her grace in the face of adversity. These days, in British culture at least, we have enthroned our feelings, as though whatever we feel at any moment is the only thing that matters, and that just letting it all hang loose is oh so brave – but it’s not brave, it’s cowardly, and not only is it cowardly, it’s tedious, meaningless, selfish, and createsliars as we compete to be the “most emotional”. Esumi, through her minimalism, reminds us that the emotion is supposed to take place in the audience and not in the actor. There is one moment, during a visit to Tamio’s old work place, where she turns and looks, it is a moment of such terrible sorrow, and yet Esumi’s face is blank, she barely moves, and there is no music to cue us in emotionally. Essentially, we the audience, project our own pain onto Esumi, and, in the process, we are cleansed (if only temporarily). Esumi’s minimalism matches that of filmmaker Koreeda’s for sure, Maborosi is one of those rare examples of when an actor’s aesthetic has integrated perfectly with the director’s, and an astonishing whole is created as a result. I can only think Koreeda handpicked Esumi for this particular film. Esumi is also a model, and although it’s difficult to say how much her model experience has impacted her acting, we may speculate that because of her modelling she is more used to being passive, as model’s are objectified, which makes her a natural for a role like Yumiko, whereas acting is traditionally about subjectivity and taking action. I should think though, her reserved expression is something which lies in her nature to a certain extent, and not something she grafted onto the performance.

The Great Acting Blog: "A Response To Otar Iosseliani's Comments On Actors' Aura"

 

“I cant stand intimate scenes in cinema....because every human being has an aura which is hard to penetrate. Professional actors imagine that it's part of their job to allow the director or other actors to penetrate their aura and enter into a totally unnatural contact with somebody they don't know.
Which is also why I consider it completely shameless to have very tight close-ups of people because the so-called “actor” cannot hide who he is, he's too close to us and he becomes distanced from the character. He becomes an actual person, an individual with all his considerations. And I have no desire to have an actual person on-screen. I want it to be a character, always a character.” - Otar Iosseliani.

I don't agree with much of what Iosseliani says here, especially about close-ups, because, for me, close-ups are not necessarily intimate. However, what did pique me, were his comments about “aura” and character. It's worth pointing out to those unfamiliar with Iosseliani's work, that typically he uses “non-actors” in his films, whose general lack of technique creates an awkwardness, and this awkwardness demarcates the performance, thus the character is always present.*  Further, the “non-actor” is usually more inhibited than the experienced actor, and is therefore less apt to “show”.

But what does Iosseliani mean when he speaks of “aura”? Well, aura, in my view, means diginity – people with an aura, act with the dignity, it's their dignity which gives them an aura. And dignity is about self-control, self-respect, acting with conviction, and behaving honourably (Chishu Ryu immediately springs to mind). The character is always present if the actor remains true to the  aesthetic integrity of the work at hand, which is to say; committing fully to the actions called forth by the scene, and excluding everything else. Whenever an actor supplies an emotion which has not been organically produced by his attempts to do the action of the scene, such as when those people with a knack for making themselves  cry decide to turn on the waterworks for no other reason than that they can, the aesthetic integrity of the piece is violated, the illusion is shattered,  suddenly the audience become aware of the actor exposing himself, and the dignity of not only the actor, but of the audience and the whole dramatic interchange, is lost (typically, in a desparate scramble for self-respect, this exposure manifests itself as admiration for the actor's technique by the audience, and for the actor's part, he speaks about the moment as “liberating”, and, “a breakthrough”).

The intent to remain true to the aesthetic integrity of the scene, is not the same as the intent to expose oneself. All this stuff about actors “going further” or “making themselves vulnerable”, points to a gross misunderstanding of what acting actually is, and is part of the trend in our wider culture to just let it all hang loose. In the end however, this transparency leads to trivial acting: because in letting us see everything, the actor expresses nothing. Great acting requires discipline and restraint, precision and control, artistic choices are made, only that which is essential is offered. A truthful performance, that is, one where the actor is true to the work and to himself, is always dignified, always mysterious, and, to use Iosseliani's language, never penetrates the aura of the actor. And, for the actor, the character does not exist other than as a reference for analysis, but by only sticking to the actions of the scene and cutting away everything else, the actor's performance becomes hi-definition, deliberate, and as a result it would seem, as Iosseliani would have it, as though the character is always present – the actor is ignoring those parts of himself which are not required for the scene, certainly his quotidian troubles have been left behind. This is also how the actor may reveal the truth of his own personality, while at the same time, maintaining the essential mystery of himself.

The Great Acting Blog: "The Shy Poetry Of Irene Jacob"

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I suppose Irene Jacob will always be inextricably linked with Krzysztof Kieslowski, and the two masterpieces she made with him: The Double Life Of Veronique, and Three Colours: Red, which made her name. I am convinced had Kieslowski lived on, he and Jacob would have made many more films together; the aesthetics of Jacob's acting and Kieslowski's cinema are utterly compatible, both marked by an unpretentious poetry and a sensitivity – no other actor is as seemless in Kieslowski's films as Jacob, infact, the BFI's Geoff Andrew wrote that Kieslowski was “making those films around her”. However, it could be said that Jacob has never quite reached the heights of those films with Kieslowski since, although it's true that after winning the best actress award at Cannes in 1994 for Red, the offers poured in, from Europe and Hollywood*, but Jacob instead retreated and took nine months off, spending most of her time “reading Tolstoy, Balzac, Singer and several autobiographies”.She worked with Louis Malle before Kieslowski, and Antonioni after, and latterly delivered a masterpiece of screen acting in Theo Angelopoulos' The Dust Of Time.

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What is unusual about Jacob on screen, is her shyness. She is never aggressive, or flamboyant, and hardly makes any attempt at intensity, even though her performances are vivid. There is a gentleness about Jacob, with a hint of melancholy. However, there is always joy in her performance, it is the energy source for all her work, and it may be re-shaped in all kinds of ways, such as sadness or confusion, depending on the needs of the moment in the scene. Jacob's performances flow from her, which sometimes gives her an ecstatic quality. Her performances are unfettered, and unmolested by vanity. There is a sensitivity and delicacy about her which can at times be heartbreaking. Her acting has the absolute ring of truth to it. As with all great actors, it is her essential goodness we respond to. Further, we also sense that her performances are coming from a deep place, they are important to her. Although she is physically small, she has a magnitude of soul, as though there is so much more to be explored, as though we are only seeing a fraction of what she may express.

 

Jacob, by her own admission, came from a “shy” family, who rarely if ever expressed their feelings. As a result, through much of her childhood, she will have repressed much of what she felt, locking it away somewhere. Then she discovers cinema:

 

“They made me laugh and cry, and that was exactly what I was waiting for in a film: to awaken me to my feelings”.

 

Suddenly those repressed feelings are stirred, and the possibility of being an actor, offers the possibility of an escape from introversion, albeit temporarily and under imaginary circumstances (ie – for the duration of the performance), and the possibility of giving expression to that repressed material. Here's Jacob again: -

 

“...the protection of a character....it's the distance that creates the poetry”.

 

The protection of a character is an interesting point – there is no character, everything the actor expresses is of himself, not of anybody else. In Jacob's case, an introvert, the objectivity of playing a character, creates a vehicle to transport the repressed material out into the world. However, she is such a captivating actor because there is a tension between her inclination for introversion and the demands of the scene (her performance). The poetry is the repressed material touched off by the actor's response to the scene, and reconfigured as truthful fiction by the actor's performance.

 

Jacob (as with all true actors), possesses a surfeit of thought and feeling brought about by shyness, and from this surfeit, Jacob creates her poetry.

 

 

The Great Acting Blog: "A Beautiful Object"

 

“I get impatient when I hear dialogue that's just too natural. I write what people would really say and then I artificialize just enough so it becomes a beautiful object”. - Hal Hartley

For anyone not familiar with Hartley's work, the dialogue is very distinctive, it's precise and rhythmical (the clip above will give you a taster), critic Jason Wood even described the characters as speaking in inverted commas. Hartley doesn't disguise the fact that what we hear is scripted dialogue. An attempt to create “naturalistic” dialogue, is an attempt to convince the viewer that what he is hearing is real – which of course it isn't.

“Naturalistic” acting then, is a style which the actor applies to his performance in order to convince the viewer that what he is doing is not acting but real, and hopefully, the viewer will buy into the fiction of the film as a result. However,  whether a film seems real or not, is irrelevant - The Fox And The Hound is no more nor less real than Casablanca - what counts is whether the film is true or false.  When the work is true, the viewer will accept that a talking fox and a talking dog can be friends, and the viewer will accept that Humphrey Bogart is in love with Ingrid Bergman – the viewer uses his own imagination. In the theatre, it is more obvious: the actor stands on a bare stage, and, speaking in verse, informs the audience that he is stood in a castle, and the audience will create the castle for themselves, in their own minds.

Artificial means consciously creating something which serves a specific function within the overall piece, creating it with a specific intention, which gives it a specific meaning – this is very different from adding extraneous details to masque a lie. And so with acting; having a specific intention for the scene, for the performance, organises it, gives it definition, rhythm and force. Talking of Casablanca, a quick comparison of American acting from that era, where nothing was included which wasn't serving the film, with the “naturalistic” performances of contemporary American acting, reveals how trivial and tight-fisted the vast majority of modern actors are. An attempt to naturalise our performance, is the attempt to remove from it all beauty, as if ashamed, but the actor needn't be ashamed: cut out the feeble-minded irrelevance, find an intention and stick to it with an iron will.

I leave you with that maestro of acting, Charles Laughton:

“Great acting is like painting. In the great masters of fine art one can see and recognise the small gesture of a finger, the turn of a head, the vitriolic stare, the glazed eye, the pompous mouth, the back bending under a fearful load. In every swerve and stroke of a painter's brush, there is an ambundance of life. Great artists reveal the god in man; every character an actor plays must be this sort of creation. Not imitation – that is mere caricature – and any fool can be a mimic. But creation is a secret. The better – the truer – the creation, the more it will resemble a great painter's immortal work.”

 

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The Great Acting Blog: "Artist As Movie Star - Alain Delon On Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai"

Please watch this 4 minute interview of Alain Delon, upon which, this blog is a response to.

 

Alain Delon is speaking the truth. How do we know? Because he does not try to sell what he is saying to us, he does not narrate his emotions, he does not indicate to us what we should be feeling in response to his words. No, Delon speaks simply and directly, which is how we speak when we  speak about something which is important to us – we do not embellish those things which are important to us, nor do we embellish the truth. It's worth pointing out that Delon was a major movie star at this time, and Le Samourai was a box office smash – compare his interview to those of the modern day movie star: drenched in the slime of self-promotion, expert in the smug schmooze, and all false self-deprecation*, and it is only ever patronizing when they praise the film they are working on (what is really meant is that film did an adequate job of showcasing their specialness).

Delon's reverence for Jean-Pierre Melville, his love for the film and for cinema itself, are obvious, and they inspire and refresh – no mere “exploitation of the form” for Delon. He recognises an auteur film when he sees one. I've said before on this blog, that actors need to learn about the aesthetics of cinema in order to choose which work to accept and which to decline, which filmmakers to support, and which to ignore – this is especially crucial with the proliferation of micro-budget cinema in recent years (and similarly, I have called on directors to improve their understanding of the aesthetics of acting, so that they can actually tell the difference between good and bad acting, and not just cast an actor because they've got the right colour hair). Delon describes Le Samourai as a work of art, a word ridiculed by self-styled “commercial” filmmakers these days, but perhaps it's worth thinking about what it actually means, and then we might strive to create same, and find the wherewithal to describe it as such.

 

*..."the director didn't even want me for the role, I had to fight for it, I had to prove to him that I was an artist" (note how the word “artist” here, is used as a term of self-aggrandizement).

 

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The Great Acting Blog: "Boredom Of The Disgust & Monotony Of The Tediousness - Part 1""

 

As I arrived in Cork,  the ever prolific and hardworking Rouzbeh Rashidi informed me that in addition to HE, we were to shoot some scenes for another feature film he was putting together (in collaboration with Maximilian Le Cain), and he did so in a tone of voice which suggested that shooting two feature films simultaneously was a perfectly reasonable thing to do, the obvious thing to do infact.

He said he wanted to explore on camera some of the ideas I have been developing on this blog over the months, aswell as create fictional, improvised scenes, then finally explore my attitude to cinema generally, in scenes which would be both fiction and documentary. However, as the scenes progressed and as we accrued material, it was decided that the footage would form a feature film of it's own: “Boredom Of The Disgust And Monotony Of The Tediousness”.

5 OF THE BEST

Firstly, Rashidi asked me to write down my five favourite actors and actresses, on a piece of paper, and then discuss what I liked about them, or why I thought they were great. Normally an easy task – I always love a good list, and walking down street lost in my thoughts, I could probably reel off one name after another, but when someone asks you to name names, suddenly the mind goes blank. However, after some thought, I did manage to come up with five actors – (in no particular order) Charles Laughton, Marlon Brando, Michel Piccoli, Jack Nicholson and Jean Gabin (on my reserve list were Alain Delon and Robert De Niro). For actresses, I decided on: Tilda Swinton, Emmanuelle Beart, Irene Jacob and Delphine Seyrig, and ran out of time before thinking of my fifth (which would have been Monica Vitti). I then offered my reasons for including each. Obviously a lot was said about the excellence of each actor's technique, but, in the end, what we respond to in each actor is their personality, each of them is intrinsically compelling – and I'm not talking about them playing compelling characters, it's something in them, call it energy, call it spirit, there's just something about them that is alight....Of course, as I write this blog, I can think of many, many others I could add to the list (Dirk Bogarde anyone?).

GURU

The next set up had me expounding my theories on acting more broadly (never needing to be asked twice to do so of course) – many of which may be viewed as “controversial”, such as the fact that there is no difference between stage and camera acting, but that a lot of people make a lot of money by inventing a difference: then charging good money to explain what the difference is, then charge again to "teach" the actor how to "adapt" accordingly. The wider point, of course, is that a whole industry has sprouted up around the idealism and the ambition of young people who go into acting – and this industry is made up of “business people” who create a problem for the actor and then offer themselves as the solution (in the same way cigarettes create an aggravation for nicotine in the smoker, which can only be soothed by smoking). A classic example, is the “career guru”, who charges actors £50 an hour to assess the marketing effectiveness of their materials (ie - headshots, CVs, covering letters etc). During this hour, the actor is subjected to a comprehensive criticism of all that he has been doing to “get work”, and at the end, the guru gives him list of things to change (whether it is an improvement is moot of course). What else is the guru to do? Imagine that the desperate actor entered the guru's den, hoping to find out “where he's going wrong”, but, after only 10 minutes, the guru simply turned round and said; “congratulations! I've checked your stuff, and everything seems in order – keep doing what you're doing and success will soon be yours”,  then ushered the actor out the door? Wouldn't the actor feel cheated out of his money? Isn't he paying for the guru to criticise him?....With the £50 spent on the guru, the actor could have gone onto Amazon and bought a Flip HD camera and started making his own films.....I didn't put it this way in Boredom Of The Disgust & Monotony Of The Tediousness, but my point is the actor should remind himself that all he wants to do is offer a presentation to an audience (and hopefully delight them in the process) – this way of thinking will keep him fitted for the task - all else should be kept in perspective. If our work becomes simply a marketing mechanism, it will not be long before the lies breed an all consuming self-loathing, and then what?

The next part of the Boredom Of Disgust & Monotony Of The Tediousness blogs, which look at the fictional improvised scenes we created.

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Poetry

The Great Acting Blog: "Gerard Depardieu In Maurice Pialat's Under The Sun Of Satan"

 

Gerard Depardieu plays Dossignan, a rural priest engaged in an intense spiritual struggle, a struggle so demanding it regularly brings Depardieu to ill health, one feels even worse might befall him if he didn't have his Dean, Menou-Segrais (played by Pialat himself) to mentor him. An encounter with Satan leads to a powerful revelation, which compels Depardieu to confront the promiscuous local girl, Mouchette (Sandrine Bonnaire),  about her troubles, an action which ultimately leads to tragedy. Essentially, Under The Sun Of Satan is about the individual's existential struggle, but by coding this struggle as religious in nature, Pialat elevates the film beyond mere drama, beyond the everyday, while at the same time maintaining a surface naturalism, and in so doing, he has presented us with one of the great masterpieces of cinema. However, Pialat could not have accomplished this without Gerard Depardieu in the main role, whose talents are uniquely suited to the form this film takes.

Depardieu is a physically powerful man, it is immediately obvious as soon as we see him on screen, but what makes him interesting is how rarely he employs his physicality as his primary mode of expression – most of the time he is very still, and only moves when necessary, he doesn't use his body to dominate the scene. Depardieu is charismatic for sure, but he is compelling to watch because when he does move or speak, he is so simple and direct, there is no huffing or shuffling of feet, no cod naturalism, he just does it, in the moment: bang,  and this directness can be alarming at times. The point is, Depardieu is a naturally talented actor,  (more and more these days, I think acting is simply a talent), he has a gift, and that is why he is not ponderous in performance: he decides what he is going to do swiftly, and then he just does it. We may call this instinct. Here's Maurice Pialat talking about Depardieu:

“He has a way of understanding things a lot faster than everyone else, which is the mark of intelligence....He's amazing at getting into character, or letting the character get to him. There is this sort of chemistry. I should know how it's done, but I don't know how he does it...when it comes to Gerard, it's just astounding. You don't need to condition Gerard. He's able to look in one direction and joke around with someone, then turn around with a sad expression on his face.”

Yes, we can sum this up as talent. And I'd go along with Pialat's definition of intelligence. While acting is not an intellectual pursuit, I think mental strength and the ability to think quickly are extremely useful qualities for an actor to possess. The other point about natural acting instinct, is how it can so easily be nullified by an insecure director (especially when the instinct belongs to a young and insecure actor) -  an insecure director is one who overburdens the actor with reason – which is in effect a rejection of the acting instinct, a rejection of the instinctive actor (ie – a rejection of the talented actor), and the stodgy, second rate actor is preferred, because the second rate actor can (and most certainly will) explain away every moment and every gesture of their performance - they have conceptualized it, and what you end up with is something closer to a lecture than a performance, and it's dull to watch, so we (the audience) “appreciate” the actor's technique because we've nothing else to be delighted by, but of course, this reassures the director that the actor is not making any “mistakes”,  which is exactly the reassurance the director was seeking in the first place, when he rejected the instinctive actor, in favour of the stodge, conceptual actor. Top tip: there are no mistakes in acting: everything that happens is engendered by the truth of the moment, whether we like it or not, whether it fits our plan or not. It's only the second class actor who treats his performance as a school exam, ticking boxes, avoiding “mistakes”, the first class actor just goes for it courageously, and that is why he is so great to watch (so, the only real question for the actor is whether he wants to be a first or second class actor, and once he has chosen, he may proceed accordingly). The truly talented actor cannot always explain how or why he is acting well, most of the time he doesn't know how or why.* If you asked Depardieu what was happening after shouting CUT, he would just shrug and light up another Gitane. Lets learn to recognise this instinct, this talent for acting, and instead of being intimidated by it, let's nurture it, or it may be lost to us.

As Andre Frossard said of Under The Sun Of Satan, it's a film which wrestles with the great questions of life, of evil, of death, of redemption, and it's a film where bodies are “only instruments of salvation or perdition”. In some respects, we're lucky Depardieu and Pialat found eachother,  and went on to make Under The Sun Of Satan – because this particular film gave Depardieu the opportunity to exercise his talent to it's fullest, and in so doing,  a rare example of the true power of the actor is committed to film.  Depardieu's physical bulk is a red herring, it is the man's spirit we respond to. He offers us an insight into the inner workings of the human soul, and his body is simply an instrument to deliver this insight. In this sense, Depardieu and the film are one. Acting then, in it's very highest form, allows us to observe body and soul working in combination – it's a visceral, emotional, sometimes enlightening experience.

Great actors show us something we cannot see anywhere else.

 

 

*There is the famous story of Laurence Olivier, who came off stage furious after giving a particularly brilliant performance of Othello. Backstage, one of the cast members said; "Larry, why are you so angry, you were brilliant tonight", to wit Olivier replied; "that's exactly why I'm so angry, I haven't got a clue how I did it."

The Great Acting Blog: "When James Stewart Quit"

 

They do not make them like this anymore.

“I've always been skeptical of people who say they lose themselves in a part. Someone once came up to Spencer Tracy and asked, “aren't you tired of always playing Tracy?” Tracy replied, “What am I supposed to do, play Bogart?” You have to develop a style that suits you and pursue it, not just develop a bag of tricks”. - James Stewart.

 

I once read somewhere that James Stewart quit acting because he no longer liked himself on screen. This makes a lot of sense to me, I need to like my work. It'll never be perfect, but it's important I'm on the right trajectory, in terms of becoming the ideal actor I'd like to be. If I was not on this trajectory, then I would either quit, or fix it.

Now, it's always a shock when I first see myself on screen, because my performance rarely conforms to the idea of the performance I had in my head, nor does it resemble how I felt while I was giving it. If we're dealing with the moment honestly, then our performances never will be how we expected them to be, all sorts of bits and pieces emerge which we had not intended, infact - it couldn't be how we expected it, unless we impose our ideal on the moment rather than dealing with it as it unfolds, and the truth gets lost. However, once the first shock wears off, we can begin to appreciate our performance for what it is, and calmly debrief from there. Acceptance then, is the first step to improving our work – accept that what we see infront of us is the actual performance we gave. If we get all neurotic about our work, then it will be very hard to progress, because it means we cannot truthfully reflect upon what we've done – we will either repress it and pretend that our performance was ideal, or freak out because our performance was not the ideal we saw in our head. I say forget the ideal we saw in our head, it is a red herring, we should compare what we have done to the needs of the scene instead, to do that is useful and rational.

However, we should also compare our performance to our definition of what great acting is, we should compare it to the actor we are striving to become. Again, this will lead to effective improvement – if, for example, you think you need superb diction in order to be a great actor but you mumble, then you know what you need to do. I thought it strange that James Stewart quit for the reason he did – surely a man who enjoyed one the most glittering careers there ever was, possessed the capacity to fix something he didn't like about his work? Afterall, he probably didn't get to where he did by being sloppy and lazy. Then it occurred to me that Stewart must have seen something in his work which not only compared unfavourably with his notion of great acting, but that that something must have been beyond his power to put right. He gave his last onscreen performance at the age of 78, so we might conclude that whatever Stewart saw in his work that he didn't like, it might have had something to do with age, either way, it convinced him he was no longer capable of attaining his great acting ideal.

As Stewart says, you've got to develop you're own style and pursue it – I take this to mean developing your own aesthetic. It's about being an individual creative artist rather than an employee. It also happens to be more pleasurable, meaningful, and fulfilling to work for your own satisfaction rather than trying to please other people, which rarely works anyway, and usually ends up with a loss of self-respect. Define the ideal actor you want to become, and pursue that ideal, and discard anyone or anything which seeks to block that pursuit, and if it's you yourself blocking it, well, then, you know what you need to do.