questions on the art of acting

1) This is reductive, but, nonetheless, in my opinion, true. You either got it or you ain't. Some people can act, some can't. For the ones who can, it's natural and effortless. For the one's who can't, it's impossible. You can improve your techniqe with practice, but that's the same with any endeavor.

QUALIFICATIONS TO THE ABOVE:
a. Stage acting is different from film acting, not necessarily in technique, but because the audience sees the entire performance, not just selected takes and composites chosen by the director/editor. For this reason, stage acting is "harder." During performance, an actor on stage is alone. A film actor is never alone.
b. The film director is responsible for getting the performance he/she (oh let's face it, it's always he) needs for the film. Some kind of beatification of the acting process is excess baggage for a director. Whatever means works for him, is the right one. Either telling the actor exactly how to pronounce each word, or letting them improvise diaglog and performance completely. If it delivers the product, good enough. Successful directors have employed both methods and all variations in between. Actors don't have some kind of "right" to act. It's just a job.

2) A film is "created" 3 or 4 times. A script is written and rewritten, then revised during shooting or even ignored. Next the picture is shot. Once the camera stops rolling, you've got all you're going to get (sfx aside, of course). Then during the editing process the film is created again. It may not have anything to do with the director's intent or with the writer's intent. This may be the real definition of an auteur--a writer-director-editor. If you have a bad performance from an actor, in the editing process you can feature the better parts of it, or change emphasis through the montage effect, all kinds of things. It stops being a performance created by the actor, but something more like a sculputure created by the editor.

3) Fiction films are no less true than documentaries which are no more true than fiction. Rather than never lying, the camera never tells the truth. The cult of the objective documentary is a brazen idol before which the people worship to the peril of their immortal souls. C.f. works of Mike Moore.

4) The "method" is dumb and bossy but perfect for self-important blockheads like R. Di Nero or D. Hoffmann (probably typecast in his role in "Rainman." Ugh, shiver in disgust.) They just get to run around "in character" saying look at me, look at me, I'm in character, look at me. But the weight gain thing is different and has to do with the representational aspects of the film medium vs. the stage. Film is so visually intimate, you need to look like what you're portraying. In the stage version of "The Elephant Man" the actor didn't need prosthetic make up. We believed him. In the film, it would be a weird irony for a normal-looking person to act like he looked different from everyone else. You could do it, but it would be a different film.

7) I'll stop now!

I can bullshit and lie and convince and confuse and manipulate and mislead and satisfy and sell and make people feel really good - all through real-life acting. I can cry, anger, laugh and seduce on cue. And yeah, it's all bullshit and I'm good enough at it that sometimes I even fool myself.

Maybe life is just acting and everyone is doing this.

immortal souls aside I tend to agree :-)
obv moore's bowling for columbine is probably the worse example possible since it fits the pamphlet bill so much better than the docu but yeah what you are saying is also extendable to scientific documentaries, NFB documentaries etc: it's the same pomo point that got the discipline of anthropology as a whole in hot water a couple of years back isn'it

Directors' instructions often sound alien to an actor because the director is coming at the thing from this kind of meta-angle. Instead of building the picture from the inside out, he builds it starting from the outside. What kind of story the bodies make, their postures and speeds and volumes and all the external effects along with the strategies each character's employing. What's the final impression? No one cares about your analysis. For an actor to hear "can you make it.... MORE INTENSE?" after spending weeks developing her ideas can be frustrating but it's the director's job to take everybodys' slightly differing and competing tones and goals (this includes lighting and costume!) and draw out the lines of the story, find the jokes, the timing, and the rhythm. So don't throw away those weeks of analysis, SOLVE THE PROBLEM (for this is what actors do in the world) and find a way to make the director's end-result-picture work with your action. It's often surprisingly easy, sometimes just by adding an adverb.

The "disponibility" ("availability" i think you mean?) of the actor to the play correlates directly to how well the actor can access what's true from her perspective. Once you know what you're doing - once you've figured out your action - you have to try and achieve it with whatever tools you've got - you PERSONALLY - and, crucially overlooked again and again in my opinion, by actors in love with themselves, you have to use tools that are actually going to work with the other human being in the scene with you, not just whatever worked before with someone else, or whatever you think looks good. Check in. Look at their face. Is it working? No? Then you'd better change tactics or you're going to lose them. "Acting before you think", the moment-to-moment instinctual process of trying to accomplish your character's aims in Real Life. It has to live in your bones and body or else there will be too much to think about. The need has to be OBVIOUS (to you at least), and then you can get on with doing whatever you can to deal with it.

The director must absolutely be a nuisance to his actors, not only because actors can usually do better, but because just like in a, i dunno, chair company where the creative team and managers might always seem like they're working at cross-purposes, if each side has arrived at convictions about the play—based on actual reasons and not just vanity—the play is better for having these convictions clash and work on each other, in rehearsal, on the sidewalk outside the theater, in arguments at the bar, or just on one's back in bed that night, turning over what the director said in your mind. It goes without saying that you have to have complete trust in your director, and I wouldn't trust any director who didn't badger the hell out of me.

"The Method" doesn't exist - but worse, it's usually used as shorthand for a specific, controversial part of Stanislavsky's new "realistic" approach to acting that he developed, the "sense memory" part; everyon'es familiar with the "try and remember your puppy dying" approach to achieving an impression of grief—and it does actually work, in a parlour trick kind of way, lots of actors and actresses can make themselves cry, or get worked up or any number of other moods but imagining these moods as the GOAL of good technique rather than its CONSEQUENCE is a serious error (but pretty commonplace). This is what the "truth" of acting is, that the consequences visited on the faces and bodies of our celebrities and stars are natural byproducts of their effort to solve their characters' problems, as they perceive them, scene by scene. Try and act mad for awhile when you're not mad. It's not easy. Because it's false. You're NOT mad, and everything about you gives you away. Put yourself in a situation where getting mad might be a natural reaction or stopping-off point in the process of needing something from somebody, and it comes easily. But focusing on the emotion before the action, the adjective before the verb, disembodies the emotion from the actual action on stage, removes it from its natural chain of cause-and-effect, and leaves it free-floating out there in the buzzing body of this amped-up dude on stage who everyon'es looking at. It can be debilitating sensation, being overtaken by a mood you summoned up out of nowhere. I've seen it happen a number of times, where someone will GIVE IN to some memory that has nothing to do with the play, stopping the scene dead in its tracks, rendering their partner speechless (cause there are no lines written for this part, it's not in the script!). It's like "pull up, pull up.... oh nooo!" Bad actors will hear a director say "more DISTRAUGHT" and sometimes just lose it.

Sense-memory for VERBS is much better, remembering what's it's like to try and do [x]. But only as preparation, for Christ's sake. "How did I handle it that time, when I really had to get somebody to join my team/make an exception/wake up and smell the coffee?" It can be the little pinch you need to really get into it. Then you remember how it feels to sidle up to the problem, what kind obstacles you had to overcome in order to solve it. Paying attention to your partner and really working to solve it - "i will NOT leave this stage until i get [x] to do [x]!" - with all your strength and cleverness and heart - will bring on enough emotions by itself without you having to worry about inventing or recreating them.

A well-placed tear can work a charm though. There's a diff between Britain and America supposedly, Americans are rumored to be more intuitive and catch-as-catch can, kind of loose cannons who never give the same performance twice; Brits are supposed to be better at delivering repeatable, precise effects. I suspect this may be outdated, more "Brando vs Olivier" than "[insert depressing contemporary comparison here]". Film and most TV demands the British way, if that's what it is; giving the same line the exact same way 10 times, the same head tilt, the same look in the eyes (Completely out-of-it slouch-kings like Steven Seagal capitalize because their expression never changes.) At first it's hard to reconcile this way of performing with the latitude actors need to give themselves in the moment-to-moment demands of reacting to what they perceive to be true about their partner, the freedom to pursue their actions however they need to at the mo - but it's not really. Just like anything else you find out what works (hint: ask the director) and stick with it. If it goes "stale" after the 7th time you probably haven't chosen the right thing anyway, so pull a hissy fit until you settle down.

I'm all for the "benevolent dictatorship" (and haha sometimes not so benevolent) approach in any art form -- but I gave up on trying to accomplish this with actors cuz they're JUST SO FUCKING EGOTISTICAL! Being a director was the biggest headache ever.

I find it interesting that speaking about the communication between director and actor in general you used the expression "each side" and "having these convictions clash and work on each other" instead of "with each other" etc, wich might explain:
For an actor to hear "can you make it.... MORE INTENSE?" after spending weeks developing her ideas
can be frustrating ? You talk about an ongoing communications to solve some of these problems but i felt it they were more of a confrontational nature isn'it?

I was thinking about this thread at work because the importance of a radious communication was not too clear in my first post and the next thing I know I found an excellent example of what I had in mind in the relation between actor Fiennes and director Cronenberg :

"Fiennes spoke of the director with remarkable warmth. "He's very open, very easy to work with," Fiennes said.
"I was very open with David, and he invites that. People say to me, 'What's he like? Is he weird and freaky like his movies?'
Not at all. He's very focused and relaxed on set, very concentrated. I never knew him once to get mad, freak out, be anxious or
seem troubled."

(...)

salon: Ralph was talking a few minutes ago about what a warm relationship he had with you.

Cronenberg:
We were very close. We talked about everything. I'm very open with my actors, I don't hide anything, I don't yell, I don't scream.
It's all very congenial and warm. What I need to do on the set is create a protected environment where people feel that they can do and
want to do their best work, and that they'll be listened to and they'll have lots of input. It's all very sucky and Canadian, you know?
It's not hostile and it's not confrontational.

There are some directors who like the mystique of being sadistic or torturing their actors into giving great things. You know, when
you're working with professional actors, they know how to torture themselves! I don't have to do it. My job is not to teach the actor
how to act. It's other stuff, a lot of feedback, a lot of support and collaboration. Everything you see in the movie that Ralph does is a
collaboration. How much nicotine stain there is on Spider's fingers. How Spider walks and what his body language is. Because of course
he mainly speaks body language in this movie, so it's very important. "

more on all later.

yes

But seriously, what is "the theater of multiplicity"? I've never heard this term. I've heard of the theater of cruelty but confess I don't really know what it means either. I can feel you stretching towards something in your question but I know not what.

let me elaborate for the fun of it :-)
I was thinking of Socrates when I wrote "child-like capacity to be amazed", how he must always had a spark in his eyes, always being curious and happy to speak to everyone about everything: he kept his curiosity fresh like the one of a child. using different words Mastroianni was saying something like this on the work of acting; it should be approached with such a freshness, like playing (adult)games instead of being contrived or something.

I know my question got all over the place because I was folding too
much information that I don't master.
a question closer to what I wanted to say would have been:
"analyze modern theater (Grotowsky,Artaud,Beckettetc) and break down all its components (themes,voice,gesture etc) into a generic template to accelerate the construction of a "theater of the multiplicity" inspired by
Deleuze
Dynamical Systems Theory
Astrophysical, Physical and Chemical Sciences
Biological Sciences and Evolutionary Psychology
History, Social Sciences and Philosophy of Mind
History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
etc"

of course it's still a useless question if one wants to be all serious about it but it could be fun, possibly useless and fun like asking a poem to be proven, and inspiring (enough to me to allow me to cut corners since I got so much work to do).
Actually the biggest part of the work is(was) to be able to articulate (this last)the question.
(btw on the relation between performers and audience i could make a bridge using tech somehow so for now I'm not too concerned about the theoretical differences between cin and theater)

the thing is i had this idea for an experimental interactive film about 7 years ago and i just kept refining it. I am getting closer to the starting point but since it's a difficult work i find I must invent customized tools at every levels, like the "open source digital audio-video archives" when it comes at it's means of production and diffusion, now this "theater of multiplicity" when it comes at the art of acting (the idea was born on this thread :-) and as you can imagine the scenario also gives me a lot of challenge since i can't resist the urge to use the old trick of the "mise en abyme" where it echoes the structure of this whole "accelerating changes" philosophical project, obv.

one of the many voices in it is simpler, it's my favorite pet idea that I mentionned elsewhere:
"Studying" as a cognitive activity can be an aesthetic object. When my aesthetic conduct it well executed it happen to positivly reinforce the whole learning process: I can notice more details while being less stressed and feel more deliciously empowered." wich in the story is a trend that helps to accelerate technological and cultural changes without alienating anybody, towards the multiplicity of humanity's becomings or something. there is too much redundance in this description but i think a glimpse of the irony passed through kindof so that'll do for now. (it's like a big hommage to vernor vinge)

anyway I think it's ok for me to be very open about this project; I don't think i even need a conflict and "pivotal points" to make the story advance. it seems there is no punch, no intrigue so i don't have nothing to hold back to anyone. My goal is not to shock anybody (on the contrary; I wish i didn't have anything to say ... one of my old friend was a bit ill at ease with me saying this but I'm not even sure what I mean by this myself and I don't know if I really mean it.). ideally people will pay attention to this digital video film not so much for it's entertainment value (wich are ok) but because it will teach a useful cognitive tool they'll be able to use in their daily lives to feel happier.
today I read a list of films made with digital video camera and I started to make calls to buy one. 5000$cnd / 36 payments seems a fine deal for a Sony PD150.
...so on that happy note i'll go to bed

no problem at all on the contrary

I just think that actors and directors inhabit difft creative universes and that's as it should be: the tension between their two difft sets of "first principles" is a shortcut to finding the pressure-points and mysteries of the piece, not a hindrance (at least if everyone acts like a relative approximation of an adult)—the actor can test the flexibility and durability of their choices against the director's POV and v-v.

yes i understood the core of what you were saying and agree except for what seemed to me a point that was too specific in contrast with the others that were more of an universal nature still originally I wrote "i don't really think we disagree on the nuisance thing" but erased it during the editing for a better flow :-)
The apparent disagrement is probably due to that one quote of edgar morin that i have memorized wich is finally stating to sink in:
"do not be competitive, be better than that: be a constructor of yourself with the other". no pun on that struggling artist please.

anyone else studied drama? i'm in the middle of a diploma now, had done some short stuff before, but really getting a buzz from it.

tracer otm with the stuff upthread, but what i find interesting is how deeply studying drama forces you to contemplate your own personality and the personalities and world around you. i kind of feel the act itself is more like a sport than an art, having gone a bit deeper with it than before, and doing it right is more of a game than i'd realised before, and involves certain techniques which make the fakery more real, like the fact that all your prompting is coming from outside yourself rather than from inside.

reading this at the moment and it's blowing my mind: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Actor-Target-Declan-Donnellan/dp/1854598384

also been doing some le coq school movement type stuff, again the sense of being drilled in an almost military or sporting fashion comes through from my classes.

given this thread is 9 years old i don't know what to expect here, but is anyone on ilx involved in this kind of thing?

how deeply studying drama forces you to contemplate your own personality and the personalities and world around you. i kind of feel the act itself is more like a sport than an art, having gone a bit deeper with it than before, and doing it right is more of a game than i'd realised before, and involves certain techniques which make the fakery more real, like the fact that all your prompting is coming from outside yourself rather than from inside.

aka social skills iirc

soz not trying to snark it up obv

tbh that sounds like a really cool thing to do that i am slightly envious of

no, totally fair point, i guess i mean you know, the preconception about acting can be based on method stuff, that you think of deep internal stuff and get it "out" of you, when actually a lot of the stuff i'm studying (obv a diff technique with its own merits/demerits) is counter to how you might imagine things would work - like you're trying to eliminate yourself in a way and just naturally react to everything on the stage.

it is really fun, i'd recommend it hugely, i'm doing it at central school part-time, the stuff you do in terms of movement and voice and things is really like bordering on yoga or that type of thing, overall it goes really deep into challenging you to act without thinking (in every sense, not just say, in a play.)

on monday we did movement class and the teacher played some senegalese music for about half an hour and basically whipped everyone into a big frenzy of dance - she was really relentless in building it to this crazy but controlled thing. it prob sounds like the worst "lol we're mad drama students" thing ever, but it was incredible, everyone has way lowered inhibitions even after 6 weeks or so of class, i've never seen such primal physicality in years of going clubbing or whatever (not enough room in london!)

lol that reminds me i saw the best youtube comment the other day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4YiM4JcLtA

nadia khanom (4 weeks ago)
i have to dance to this for my assessment and it is lyrical dancing about drugs. I am going to fail

such a strange record

yeah isnt it, hot since 82 mentioned it in an interview with pete tong the other week (in the same breath as deep dish 'stay gold' - very leeds imo) and got me right into it

picturing that dance has kept me going all week anyway

out of curiosity what was your audition piece for that course if you dont mind my asking

it was the final monologue from this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eigengrau-Penelope-Skinner/dp/0571255965

i did a short course there last january and i worked on a tiny scene as the same character, my teacher then told me about the diploma and gave me some encouragement, so i decided to stick with the part she'd sort of cast me as, just made sense since it had been prepared in a really good setting.

that side of it is interesting too, a good class gives you a sense of what you're naturally better at doing, and it can be surprising.

in my case the whole loser/psycho/quieter avenue has opened up a world of better acting, whereas i think i wanted to be the more dominant outspoken character before exploring status and stuff in class, without imagining myself as some hero type or whatever, far from it.

the scene is basically this sort of sympathetic eejit talking to his dead gran's ashes as he throws them off brighton pier, to "let go" of the memory. kind of funny but not in his head.