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.

Drifting Clouds recommends: Fritz Lang's "M"

This film is an absolute masterpiece, and check out Peter Lorre's unbelievable performance.

 

 

M (1931)

Director: Fritz Lang

Producer: Seymour Nebenzal

Cast: Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Gustav Gründgens, Theodor Loos

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Lang's first sound film was based on the real-life manhunt for the Düsseldorf child-murderer (an extraordinary performance by Peter Lorre). A radical, analytical film that entertains many of Lang's fascinations: innovative use of sound; the detail of police procedure; the parallels drawn between organised police behaviour and the underworld... a construction which carries Lang's own view of the arbitrariness of the Law. A subversive film, or more simply a movie brimming over with the ferment of Lang's imagination at its height? You choose

 

The Great Acting Blog: "Making Sense"

 

 

A couple of years ago I read an interview with Michael Gambon who, when asked what work he had lined up next, replied that he didn't know and hoped a couple of projects would come to fruition and provide him with employment. He then remarked that it was a terrible life to always have to rely on others for your happiness.

 

Of course, what Gambon is referring to in that last sentence, is that acting makes him happy, but he must rely on other people to give him the opportunity to perform.

 

If an actor of Gambon's stature doesn't know what's going to happen next, then think of the challenges facing the young, unknown actor, whose life is made more problematic by the general distorted view of what an actor is. When we say “actor”, many relate that to the stars of Hollywood, or famous soap actors on the cover of magazines, or even celebrated stage actors like Gambon. But this lifestyle is only enjoyed by a very small percentage of actors, the reality for the vast majority is very different, much of whose time is spent simply struggling to get work as oppose to sipping champagne, and during this struggle the actor must maintain focus and strength in order to be ready to work at the drop of a hat. This is not easy, and it can take years to develop the mental strength and the correct habits of thought in order to endure the struggle over long periods of time. As I've mentioned before on this blog, few are able to cope with this way of living and many quit the business. Infact, I have come to believe that those who are able to continue and flourish, are the ones who can adapt to shifting circumstances the best.

 

I have often found absurd the notion that actors should treat their careers like a business, because if anyone applied business diagnostics to acting, no one would ever become actors because acting doesn't make business sense (although I do believe that business disciplines should be employed by the actor in his life and work). Few actors are rich people, to get even one acting job is difficult let alone attain any kind of financial security.

 

This isn't a complaint, I'm simply stating my view of what life is like for many actors. Infact, I think the struggle is one of the beautiful things about the life. Afterall, if it were easy then anyone could do it, and where's the fun in that?

 

No, I speak of the challenges facing the actor in order to question what motivates him. If making a basic living is hard enough, and fame and fortune are such remote possibilities, then what is it that impels the actor to continue? I'm sure the notion of fame (and it really is only a notion) is lodged at the back of many actors' minds because it is a profession where fame is not impossible. But fame is too broad an idea to drive one through difficult times, and if it's money you want, then there are far far easier ways of making it. Infact, an actor can toil endlessly without material reward.

 

Then what is it? What is it that drives the actor to ignore the overwhelming odds against him and go for it and keep on going for it every morning when he wakes-up? Is it the sheer joy of doing the work? For sure. Pigheadedness: I'm going to finish what I started irrespective of anything else? That too. Fear of failure? That's very possible for many. The need to continually improve and accomplish ever greater goals? Yes to that aswell. But none of these points is overarching.

 

So, what is then?

 

That acting makes the actor's life make sense. When he is not working, the actor becomes uncertain, distracted, dissatisfied, a hollowness forms within him, and he can commit to many other activities with furious conviction. However, acting will always call him back, and when he returns, the pieces will slot into place. And it is this need for meaning which impels the actor to continue, and a man like Gambon to put his happiness in the hands of another. It is not fame nor fortune, but meaning.

Jim Jarmusch Interview in The Reykjavik Grapvine

via grapevine.is

Jim Jarmusch on...
This year's guest of honour shares his thoughts on film and reality
3.10.2010 Words by Wiebke Wolter
Photos by
“I'm not an analytical person and I don't really analyse what my films mean or what their intention is. I'm intuitive,” says Jim Jarmusch, icon of independent filmmaking. His films are independent in multiple ways: On one hand Jarmusch finances his movies indpendently, and on the other hand he doesn't tell a story on screen in in the traditional Hollywood way.

His early films from the Eighties, like 'Stranger Then Paradise' or 'Down By Law', follow male outsiders drifting around. These films, called “plotless” by some critics, requite the spectator to focus carefully because they are told a story in a slower rhythm, neglecting the well known Hollywood causation principle along with the concept of a hero achieving his goal. His later work, like 'Coffee & Cigarettes', 'Broken Flowers' and his latest film 'The Limits Of Control', is more abstract, working with repeating motifs and focussing more on individual scenes than on a comprehensible storyline.

Jim Jarmusch, who received the Creative Excellence Award at this year's RIFF, attended a double feature screening of his films 'Down By Law' and 'The Limits Of Control' and shared his thoughts with the audience. Jarmusch spent over one and a half hours telling us about his movies, the process of filmmaking and reality in general. The Grapevine was there and collected some of his thoughts for you.

… The process of filmmaking

“I consider my job to be a kind of receptor of things that move me. When I am working on a film idea I take quite a long time to collect disparate things, that I don't know quite know how they go together yet. I usually have some some actors that I would like to imagine to become certain characters in a kind of imagined world of a film. I start gathering these things. And then something tells me, it is time now to connect the dots, than I write a script based on the collection of these things. I don't even write the script always in continuity, I might write scene 56 and then scene 3, I'm not always sure how it goes together. I write really fast, because the script is just a starting map. Then I get my cast together, I get some more ideas and change some things. Then I look at other locations, and get more ideas. After shooting, the final draft is the editing. I try to be open to different possibilities that might suggest themselves. When I'm done making the film and having presented it, I never look at it again.”

… Limits of Control: Reality and consciousness

“Limits of Control for me is about the fact that each one of us has our own consciousness and it is the most valuable thing we have, it is our own. You can be influenced, people will try to tell you what is reality. I grew up with authority figures in school, police men even my father telling me things similar to what the character of Bill Murray says to the lone man in the end of the film: `You just don't understand how the real world works´. And I heard that so many times. But the real world is mine to interpret. I don't like to be told what is real. (…) I think it should be a sin or even a criminal thing for anyone to tell other people `what I believe is right and therefore you have to believe in the same thing´. (…) I really respect their consciousness and everyone has very different experiences, they accumulate and form you own kind of consciousness. It is a very valuable thing, ones particular perspective of what ever the world is.”

… How to understand his films

“A poet, I think it was E. E. Cummings said `You can understand the poem without knowing what it means´ [`Don't try to understand it, let it try to understand you.´ E.E. Cummings]. That is very important to me, because you can feel things from a painting, a film, from music without necessarily knowing exactly what it means, which essentially is less important than understanding it on another level, which may not be rational or logical.”

After chatting with the audience, Jarmusch went downtown where he continued chatting with people at Kaffibarinn, Bakkus and Boston.

The Great Acting Blog: "Commitment"

 

 

“If you want someone to serve the film, you don't want too much bullshit. You want someone who's committed, who's going to show up on time, who's gonna be in your corner. When you need someone, I'm the guy.”

 

The above is a quote from Mark Ruffalo in a recent interview which piqued my interest, and I was all set to write a panegyric about how Ruffalo was one of the great underrated American actors, before I decided to think a little bit more deeply about what he was saying.

 

Ruffalo here, is really telling us he is a committed actor, because all the points he makes are simply different examples of what a committed actor does. He has created a list of selling points, good reasons why you should hire him. I confess, however, that I was a little shocked by this, for many of those qualities listed, in my opinion, should be standard practice, not special features. I'm not knocking Ruffalo, I admire the guy, and I'm glad he celebrates these qualities, but I think all actors should be committed actors.

 

Commitment means the exclusion of all other possibilities, when you make a commitment you cut away all other options, total commitment implies a lack of concern for anything else except reaching your goal.

 

And the goal of the actor's work is to communicate the play* to the audience, and this communication is what the actor is committing to. And the first expression of this commitment is time-keeping. Not only turning up to work on time, but turning up 15 minutes early. To keep time well requires self-discipline, focus, strength of mind, and a healthy respect for life generally. Nobody ever won an Oscar for timekeeping though, it is as unglamourous as learning lines, but no less important. I learn all of my lines by the first day of rehearsal. I didn't used to, I used to learn them as I went along in rehearsal. But now I memorize them by the first day, and not because I'm a smart-alec or want to be competitive, but because I can function better: I am freer to play the scene in different ways, and play it fully, I am less self-conscious and more adventurous in my choices. Before I can confidently remember my lines, there is a tendency to lean on the script, like crutches. There is no magic recipe for learning them either, it's just a question of knuckling down with a bit of good old fashioned hard work: relentless repetition in other words. I cannot act until I can do the lines habitually, never searching for them, and this allows me to act at full tilt, in the moment. When I first started out, I, laughably, only used to half learn my lines, believing that my searching for the correct line made my performance somehow truer, more “real”. Nonsense, it had the reverse effect, often leading me to anticipate my next line because I was scared I would forget it as I hadn't learned it properly.

 

If the actor is not committed to serving the play, then what is he doing? Oftentimes, one finds actors in the company who would prefer to play politics, and seek power over their colleagues as oppose to simply doing the work at hand. Typical behaviour of this kind of actor includes: speaking with the director as though they were best mates, treating their colleagues like second class citizens, alternating between wanting people to kiss their ass and hold their hand, and always acting first to serve their vanity. They see the production as little more than a mechanism for expressing how “special” they are. This kind of actor is not interested in the play, much less the audience. And perhaps that is what Ruffalo meant by “bullshit”.

 

So the committed actor then, understands that the production as a whole is greater than himself, and strives to “serve the film”. The committed actor not only shows up to work early and knows his lines cold, but supports the production and it's director. He prepares properly, and is able to rise above petty politicking or disturbances. He shows respect, loyalty and courtesy towards his colleagues (and patience when the same is not forthcoming). The committed actor never complains, and cherishes the privileged work he does.

 

Commitment to work is a fundamental tenet if one is to become an artist.

 

 

I use the word “play” as a catch all phrase to include: film, television, radio, web, mobile device, and all other performance platforms.

 

NB – I highly recommend Ruffalo's performance in Kenneth Loneragan's “You Can Count On Me”, Laura Linney is also very good, and a wonderful script allows for some good old fashioned dramatic acting.

 

Recommendation: Les Bonnes Femmes

Director: Claude Chabrol

Producer: Robert Hakim, Raymond Hakim

Cast: Bernardette Lafont, Stéphane Audran, Clothilde Joano, Lucile Saint-Simon, Claude Berri, Mario David full cast

Duration: 102 minutes

Les Bonnes Femmes (1960)

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Guilt, complicity, bourgeois aspirations and murder: Chabrol's fourth feature clearly illuminates his abiding interests, even as it achieves a dazzling formal complexity in its arrangement of a series of events charting the dreams of a better life entertained by four Parisian shopgirls desperate to escape the daily monotony of their existence. One longs for success in the music halls, one the staid security of marriage, another a good time and little else; and the last, seeking romance, is the most vulnerable... At once a detailed portrait of Parisian life and an ironic, witty study of human foibles, the film remains emotionally affecting thanks to Chabrol's unsentimental compassion for his subjects.

 

The Great Acting Blog: "My Own Good Opinion"

When I started out as an actor, I accepted any part in any production that came my way. I didn't think too deeply about the production or who was producing it or the quality of the work or what it might accomplish, I was simply thrilled to be given a chance to exercise my craft and dived in, and tried to do the best I could. When my first agent offered to take me on, I bit her hand off without any thought for what she could offer me, which, as it turned out, amounted to little more than a few commercial castings and a vague promise about a bit part in Dream Team (which never materialized), and after I hadn't heard from her for two years I decided to delete her contact details from my CV, understanding her silence as a signal that she no longer wanted to continue our professional relationship. It was simply the opportunity to gain experience I was taking, rightly or wrongly, and I did learn.

However, there came a point in my career when I needed to take greater responsibility. I felt that I was not fulfilling my potential. I certainly wasn't the actor I wanted to be and I sensed there was a lot more to come from me but I didn't know how to tap into it. I decided to break away from my old habits, and set about defining my aesthetic, and practicing it rigorously. I researched acting technique, a process which began with Michael Chekhov and ended with David Mamet, and Practical Aesthetics.

I then realized I needed to test my ideas in a performance situation, and I wanted a stern test at that, so I wrote a one-man play, The Call, which was structured around a telephone conversation, and the audience only heard the character's side of it. I directed myself in the play, and one of the reasons I did so, was that I wanted an unfettered view of my work, all of the thinking and analysing and articulating would be mine, I could get a true picture. The play, and my performance were generally well received, but I knew within myself I wasn't quite there. Next I decided to write, produce, direct and act in a short film, and I intended it to be my "statement of acting". And again this worked to an extent but I still wasn't convinced, possibly because it did not provide me with a stern enough test as an actor.

My second play, Certain Things, was a full three act tragi-comedy, about a man who suspects his fiancee of having an affair with the lodger, and this time there was a cast of five. It took me six months to write the play, and I cast myself in the lead role and directed the other actors. What is important here, is that I used exactly the same technique to write the play, act in the play, and direct the other actors in the play, exactly the same technique. I will not pretend this production was not an enormous challenge, which required a huge effort, but it answered many of the questions I had about myself as an artist. It was a life changing experience. My performance in the play was closer to what I wanted, and showed me I was on the right track.

I am not a writer or a director, and I have no ambitions to be either. I wrote and directed those scriptes as a "non-writer" and as a "non-director", my primary motivation was to explore and develope my aesthetic to the point where I could articulate it and practice it simply and precisely. And in the process I became an independent artist, requiring no eye, but seeking my own good opinion of my work.