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: "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).

 

RELATED

Alain Delon

Acting, Ambivalence And The Creative Urge

Boredom Of The Disgust & Monotony Of The Tediousness

Year 1 Filmography

From Fake Independence To A True Artistic Culture

 

The Great Acting Blog: "Alain Delon"

 

Alain Delon delivered great performances in films made by some of the great maestros of cinema: Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Pierre Melville, Louis Malle, Jean-Luc Godard, Rene Clement and Joseph Losey. That alone may qualify Delon as a great actor, because in order to be great, the actor must give great performances in great productions, it is not good enough to give great performances in mediocre ones. Delon however, not only gave great performances in great movies, but defined an entire aesthetic (Delon is a reference point for a certain kind of acting) in the same way a painter might, or a filmmaker or a playwright. In this sense, Delon is a supreme actor-artist and belongs in a group made up of only a handful of actors.

 

How do you describe Delon's work to someone who has never seen him perform? Well, Delon is not forceful in the way Brando was forceful, and he's a positive wallflower compared to someone like Laughton. Delon is reserved, he is still, and when he does move it is swift, decisive and precise, and he always keeps it simple. His work is about clarity of action, that is: the actions Delon performs on behalf of his character in the scene are clear. He is highly disciplined* and excludes the non-essential in service of the film he is working on. Physically, he is superbly constructed, and I have often thought that if I had to design a screen actor, it would probably come out something like Alain Delon.

 

I knew Delon was my kind of actor when I saw him in Antonioni's masterpiece, L'Eclisse, where he plays a brash, arrogant stockbroker chasing after Monica Vitti. There is a scene which takes place in the office where Delon's character works. It is the end of a very busy day, where Delon has had to deal with many angry clients demanding their money back after the stock market has collapsed. Finally, he has a moment of peace: relaxing at his desk he picks up a glass of Coke, rocks back on his chair and slowly brings the drink to his lips, but just before he is about to drink, he pulls the glass away from his mouth and slams it back down onto the desk, leaps out of his chair, grabs his coat and leaves the office. We find out in the next scene that Delon was late for a date, hence the about turn with the Coke. This is a brilliant example of how the actor can convey so much through the handling of objects. Here, Delon has shown, by changing his action in front of us, how the character has had a complete and rapid change of thought (note that the actor need not “think” the “thoughts” of the “character”, and this is impossible anyway), it is simple, but it's compelling, and it's true.

 

This week saw Delon turn 75, and I was shocked to see him in a photograph as the old man he now is (albeit still in good shape) because my image of him is still stuck in 1967, when he played the now iconic hitman, Jef Costello, in Jean-Pierre Melville's seminal film noir masterpiece, Le Samourai, a movie which reached almost mythical proportions for me because I had to wait so many years to see it, and it's still not readily available here in the UK. Le Samourai is also one of the most influential films of all time. Almost all contemporary silent-assassin-films will have been affected by it in some way. Infact, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino among others, have sited Melville's film as an influence upon their own work (and, if I may, an influence upon mine, as my short script “Reprieve” owes something to Melville), and, at the centre of it all, is Delon, as the stoical master Hitman, utterly immaculate, and very, very cool.

 

Le Samourai is a deceptively simple film, as is Delon's performance in it, yet neither are lacking in mystery. Further, Melville's film is essential in the sense that every frame is necessary, exclude anything and the film will not make sense. Again, this is in harmony with Delon's work, we absolutely must watch everything he does because everything he does is meaningful, and we sense this while watching. And both the film and Delon refuse to yield their secrets, even after repeat viewing. Rarely has there been an example of a film being constructed around the aesthetic of it's leading actor, and, vice versa, rarely has an actor embodied a film's aesthetic so purely. There is a unity between the actor's performance and the filmmaker's design, they become one and the same, and the overall effect is a film of true aesthetic beauty.

 

*Volker Schlondorff tells the tale of how Delon would arrive on set precisely at the time he was called, and leave exactly when scheduled to.