The Great Acting Blog: "There Is No Such Thing As A Transformational Actor"

 

“There is no difference between what I experienced, and what is on screen”. Emmanuelle Beart on her work in L'Histoire De Marie Et Julien.

 

Emmanuelle Beart has long been one of my favourite actors – if she's in something, then I'll watch it – infact, I think she is one of the finest actors working anywhere today. Beart perhaps lacks the credibility of a Juliette Binoche, because of her reputation for going nude, and she lacks the street cred of that charismatic one-trick pony, Beatrice Dalle, largely because she hasn't brushed with the law in the way Dalle has*. However, I would proffer that Beart possesses greater innate acting talent than either of her two contemporaries. And if anyone is in any doubt about the calibre of her CV, may I suggest her two masterpieces with Jacques Rivette, La Belle Noisuese and L'Histoire De Marie Et Julien, L'Enfer for Claude Chabrol, plus two brilliant films for Claude Sautet, Nelly & Monsieur Anaud and Un Coeur en Hiver, plus films for Andre Techine, Raul Ruiz, Francois Ozon, Olivier Assayas, Danis Tanovic, et al, and you get the picture – what we have here, is a serious film artist. The mystery really, is why Beart is not celebrated more.

 

Beart has a wonderfully complex screen persona. Her great beauty is offset by a certain moodiness and a certain lonliness, the sense that something has been lost forever, at times she is vulnerable. On the other hand, she's intense, she poses a threat, there's an edge, a lack of sentimentality and a ruthlessness. We're not entirely sure whether she can be trusted, yet we want to follow her story anyway. The through line which enables these qualities to hang together, is that she is constantly wrestling between the intuitive and the intellectual (I'm talking about during her performance here). There's a tension which arises from wanting to understand what is happening in the scene during the moment, analysing it, and the need to keep the scene moving forward by just doing the thing. This tension gives rise to a certain energy, and it's interesting to observe her when she is not speaking lines but listening to her scene partner: she is full of energy, and often unsure where to put that energy, sometimes it is dealt with by handling an object, or a movement of the eyes. There is a scene in The Story Of Marie And Julien where she silently observes Jerzy Radziwilowicz reading a letter, she has such restless energy it's actually quite shocking, and when I say restless I don't mean tickish or skittish, she is actually quite restrained, it is more the case of the small movements within this restraint which are compelling, and help to create her intensity. The important point about Beart however (and herein lies her talent), is that she allows her inner conflicts to express themselves while the scene unfolds, she doesn't try to pretend they aren't there, or try to portray herself as a person-without-flaws (which is what characterization is all about) – this is why her work is intense and compelling, this is great acting.

 

There's no such thing as a transformational actor: when an actor appears in a film or a play, what you get is that actor, what they are, the actor does not “become” somebody else**. A “constructed” performance, ie – one where a character is designed and applied by the actor, smoothes out and hides the actors' true personality, they are trying to repress the true complexity of their personality, and, in so doing, try to sell us the idea that they are fully in control of everything. But they needn't do so. We are all complex, which means we are all interesting, and the truth of the actor's personality will always be more compelling than a constructed personality. However, it requires great courage to reveal our true nature publicly, but if we can learn to do so, our performances will be far richer, as will the audiences experience of them.

 

*Yes, any kind of allusion to crime by an artist, is seen as a sign of “authenticity” by our closested and ivory-towered upper middle-classes – as if breaking the law were the same as genuine artistic endevour.

 

** The character exists from the audience's point-of-view, as an illusion which they willingly buy into.

The Great Acting Blog: "Filmmakers' Artifice, Actors' Truth"

I have been editing my short film, The Audition, and have come to realise that, to a certain extent, editing is a brilliant way of learning about acting, because the editor is selecting and arranging the performances depending on the needs of the film, and clearly, a great deal of analyzing the performances takes place in order to get this job done. The Audition is a very gentle film, the drama is slight, and therefore, the performances need to be very precise in terms of expressing the individual beats of the film, otherwise there would be nothing to see – The Audition doesn't have big moments in it to masque generalized acting. Not only do the performances need to be precise, but so too does the editing, each little expression in each shot needs to be weighed up very carefully, the juxtaposing of differing nuances can alter the meaning of the film – again, there is nothing broad about the The Audition; a look, an inflection, a gesture, all of these expressions are crucial in such a minimal work.

So far this process has lead to an affirmation of many of the ideas and principles I have been exploring and trying to articulate here on this blog recently. Upon reviewing the footage, I was shocked by one of the first things I noticed, which was that I almost mumble (but not quite) one of the early lines in the film, my speech is tense, I speak it almost in a staccato – this is the symptom of an underlying tension. However, as the scene progresses, so does my performance, and I begin to relax and speak freely, and my personality begins to shine through. My initial shock wore off, as I reflected upon it, and understood that this is very much the pattern of an audition in life – to begin with we are cautious and reserved, frightened of failure, but as we break the ice and then hit our straps, we loosen up - from this particular moment in the film then, I can infer something general about life – there is a provocative little truth to it, and it is arrived at by allowing the moment to unfold as it will, not applying some outside ideal to the dialogue, a perfect recital would have given a lie to the scene. The performance should be an actuality, not a reference.

It is the actor's job to bring truth to the scene, whereas it is the filmmakers job to supply the fantasy, or, put another way: it is the actor's job to be truthful under imaginary circumstances created by the filmmaker. On The Audition, I am both actor and filmmaker, and so there is a convergence of aesthetics as it were. For me, cinema is not a realistic art form: the script, the camerawork, the editing, are formalized – the dialogue for example, has a deliberately precise rhythmn. The object of this formalism is to draw attention to the fact that the film is an artifice, and it is the actor's responsibility to anchor this artifice with truth. The combination of filmmaker's artifice and actor's truth mean that the film corresponds to our dream life, and our fantasy life, that world which lies below and on the margin of our consciousness, not necessarily articulate, not necessarily understood, but fabulous nonetheless. The actor is the audience's (and the filmmaker's) representative within the film, the actor provides them with access into the film. That the actor give  a truthful performance is crucial, because this enables the audience to participate fully in the film. As with a dream or a fantasy, no matter how weird and wonderful it is, we always recognise the truth of ourselves within it. The same needs to be true of a film.

The Great Acting Blog: "The Thrilling, Provocative, Beautiful Truth"

I hold an often ridiculed view that the scene the actor is playing can impress upon the his mindset. I don't mean that actor “becomes” the character – this is nonsense – I mean that the scene can influence the actor, for example: if the actor discerns in his analysis that the character he is playing doesn't care about what is happening in the scene, it may become that the actor stops caring about the production he is working on. Please note: the actor cannot know this influencing is taking place, it happens gradually, almost imperceptibly, and the actor will blame his eventual change of mindset on everything except the real cause: the scene itself.

 

However, for the organic actor, this influencing is positive and creative, even if it is unconscious. If for example he is playing a scene where the character is bluffing, all kinds of wonderful, little, provocative moments may reveal themselves in performance, small tells (eg – playing with an earlobe, or handling pieces of paper), which are unplanned, infact, could not have been planned, but there they are, fabulously expressive, complex, intense, and true. The actor doesn't want to consciously re-create these great moments - they're great because they're spontaneous. The actor may try to re-create them because he cherishes them, and further, they represent strong work and so it makes sense to recreate them, but the actor must resist this temptation and create afresh each time. Any re-created version of them will be a dead thing – that moment has passed, move on.

 

The alternative to the organic actor is the presentational actor, who frees himself from the hassle of creation by mapping out his entire performance: every gesture, every turn of the head, every inflection, has been planned in advance (and labelled “characterization”) and the performance is merely a plodding implementation of the plan, even to the extent that changes to his scene partner's performance are ignored. The object of presentational performance is to control everything in order to avoid the terror of facing upto the truth of the moment (which can seem like an abyss). Presentational acting has got nothing whatever to do with creating, and everything to do with limiting criticism, it's rarely provocative or exciting in it's search for bland flawlessness. Furthermore, this actor plays everything in inverted commas as it were, indicating to the audience that he isn't really the character (because of course we couldn't discern that for ourselves – doesn't this actor know that his performance is an illusion which the audience willingly buys into?), and would show that the character is bluffing by using a predetermined general physical nervousness, flicking the eyes, and other cliches, rather than letting the performance manifest itself by confronting the moment. The performance of the organic actor however, appears not to be performance at all, but simply the functioning of his personality, indeed, no differential between his work and his personality can be made.

 

It takes courage and strength to face upto the truth, it is far easier to brush it under the carpet, and trot around in a bland hypocrisy. Acting is not about being perfect all the time, although yes, we need to strive for excellence. The moment may not be perfect, it may not be how we intended it, but it may be true, and this truth is always provocative, always thrilling, always beautiful.