A few words on method acting

brianluce

I got this from Delancey Place

Lee Strasberg, director of the Actor's Studio, the most famous acting school in America, whose students included Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, James Dean, Anne Bancroft, Julie Harris, Marilyn Monroe and many others. Strasberg is best known for his own role as Hyman Roth in The Godfather, Part II. He based his work on the ideas of the Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski. Central to Strasberg's teaching was the idea that an actor needed to closely attend his or her own emotional and physical state, and to focus on transitioning from tension to relaxation. His ideas on relaxation apply far beyond acting:

"The first thing Strasberg does, both in his private classes and at the Studio, is to check the actor for tension. Very few of us are fully relaxed in life, but we are not usually aware of tension until it becomes extreme and shows itself through pain. Tension can be so habitual that when relaxation is induced we feel actually as if a great weight had been removed, as if the pull of gravity were somehow lessened. Strasberg's highly developed powers of observation enable him to point out the manifestations of tension in actors' bodies, voices, even in the expression of their faces.

"Long ago Strasberg enunciated his belief that 'when there is tension, one cannot think or feel.' But he also constantly emphasizes the opposite and positive sense of this idea: the human being is naturally expressive. When he is relaxed and really thinking about or paying attention to something, or even when random thoughts move through his consciousness, impulses pass without interruption into pure expression. The voice changes. Distortions in the way the body or the head or the arms and shoulders are held disappear. The expression of the face changes. The person actually takes on a new appearance.

"Strasberg knows that calling the actor's attention to his tensions is merely the first step in dealing with them. In the long run the actor must be reconditioned to function in a state of relaxation. This is accomplished by making him aware of the particular causes of tension in himself. Relaxing the tensions acquired in a lifetime and in years of wrong acting may take further long years of conscious hard work in which deliberate relaxation plays a part in all stages of activity. Relaxation is worked at as a separate activity, but it is also made a conscious part of all acting work. And as he comes to understand what causes his particular tensions and the extent to which he can naturally respond when relaxed and concentrated, the actor's belief grows, and belief in turn encourages further relaxation. But it cannot be emphasized too strongly that tension cannot be eradicated by paying lip service to an idea.

"Tension is the occupational disease of the actor. Relaxation is the foundation on which almost all actors' work is based. Stanislavski posited that relaxation is an actual professional activity for the actor. When you see good performers, one of the things that makes them good is a certain amount of relaxation. We may not always be aware of exactly what they're doing. We may refer to their sense of ease or authority, but in fact it is relaxation that we are noticing.

"The ordinary actor sometimes achieves relaxation by himself as a result of working on the stage, but that takes about twenty years -- literally. If you watch the development of an actor, you see that as he starts off he is young and energetic -- and tense. After about ten years he begins to overcome some of the tension, but nothing really takes its place. After about twenty years a wonderful thing begins to happen. It has almost nothing to do with whether he is good or bad. He simply feels that when he comes on the stage he is there to stay. And he gains the wonderful ease that is part of the medal you earn by being in the theatre a certain amount of time."

Author: Tape-recorded sessions edited by Robert H. Hethmon

jrd

With respect at least to film acting, Ben Kingsley said it much more succinctly: "the camera hates acting and loves behavior" (which sounds a lot like Strasberg's "wonderful ease").

sam_stickland

I once met a director who told me that he thought the reason why us Brit's play so many villains in Hollywood is that method acting, so prevalent across the pond, isn't a very good technique for umm... super villainy, or larger than life characters. In his view, its focus on personal experience to identify with the character meant that it dragged what ought to be an imposing, powerful figure of 'otherness' down to the size of the actor playing it.

Do you agree, disagree?

EDIT: Just found this, while exploring this theme, that puts it more succinctly than I've managed:

My limited and grossly generalized understanding of the difference between the dominant American and British acting styles is this: Americans seek to remove barriers and artifice and present moments of raw emotional/psychological truth, and Brits build a toolkit of techniques in diction, expression and body language to convey a scene's meaning to an audience.

The American method gives us fearless, visceral performers like Marlon Brando and Sean Penn, who have few or no obvious British counterparts. On the other hand, British performances may have a greater feeling of back-and-forth, a sense that the actor is actively communicating with the audience at every moment of a carefully structured performance.

Washington Post critic Stephen Hunter explored some of the advantages of the British technique in his review of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: "[T]he movie is kind of a laboratory on American vs. British technique. Score: Brits 10, Yanks 0. That's because to the Brits, who work from the outside in, acting is physical mastery of face and voice and body, strategically employed at certain moments for impact. An actor imposes himself on the character, and invents charm and wit and sparkle where none exists. So even the guy playing Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is creepy-elegant, and McGregor, athletic and earnest, can even bring a little life to a line like, 'I am concerned for my Padawan. He is not ready to be given this assignment on his own yet.' The Americans, on the other hand, are trained to get into the character's mind and imagine as he would imagine, to work from the inside out. But there is no inside here: These characters are nothing but pop-cult props, and that leaves the performers helpless and inert."

http://www.actorsforum.com/showthread.php?t=114

jrd

Virtually every American actor today either goes through the Strasberg Institute or schools which offer similar Method instruction. For a director, dealing with these people can be maddening. The Star Wars example is a good one: what do you do with a Method-trained actor who insists on "feeling" a line of bad dialogue, or finding a motivation for it? Whereas a technically skilled Brit will just ask himself: what do I have to do, to make this f****** line passable? The Americans on the Stars Wars production were well aware of the problem. Harrison Ford reportedly remarked to Lucas that, "you can type this stuff, George, but you can't say it".

You run into the same problem with well conceived/written but difficult dialogue, which many Methods actor simply can't figure out how to handle, because, it's a literary or rhetorical construction, not some grunt from the ID -- the main reason it's next to impossible to find American actors who can credibly do Shakespeare or classical drama generally. This is so endemic to the American system, that an actor like Christopher Walken can make a whole career out of giving bizzare line readings -- and he's interesting to watch, for just that reason. You wonder, what kind of warped mind is producing these utterances, because everyone else in the movie is giving stagey or flat American line readings and looking soulful....

So it sort of depends on the role. If you're doing Raging Bull, East of Eden or On the Waterfront, go with the Yank (at least, for the lead). Otherwise.....

brianluce

what do you do with a Method-trained actor who insists on "feeling" a line of bad dialogue, or finding a motivation for it? Whereas a technically skilled Brit will just ask himself: what do I have to do, to make this f****** line passable?

This is what I was thinking too. How do you transcend weak material? Few actors can. I think Morgan Freeman does it all the time. Dunno if he's method or not -- perhaps it doesn't matter. A great actor has some built in gravitas and also, perhaps, can go outside the script to create a backstory to infuse the character, hopefully something additive will bleed through onto the screen. Hopefully.

svart

Interesting. I've had the pleasure of working with a few "method" actors. Unfortunately they spend most of the time talking about how awesome method acting is, and little time showing how awesome it actually is. I think it's become too much of a buzzword and source of unfounded pride. Usually, when you question their "method" you get the "you don't really understand it" reply, which is really just the defensive reply for a person who doesn't really get it themselves...

I don't necessarily care how tense you are or how long you've been in character before/during the shoot as long as it works in my viewfinder.. I think as a director, you have the ability to ease tension in your talent. Your talent will already be tense regardless of how much training they've had to recognize that same tension. That's just part of performance, the desire to do the job at the top of your ability, but the fear that you won't. As a director, you have to find a way to make your talent feel good about themselves but without pandering or babying. Usually being direct without sarcasm or disapproval works the best, usually alongside explanation or simply an example of what you require them to do. I've found that the director's approach will yield a better performance than someone's theory. That and just picking the right person for the right role. Sometimes you just can't get blood from a stone no matter how hard the talent tries or how good they are otherwise.

jleo

Another great Kazan film is, Wild River, with one of the first Method actors Montgomery Clift, and Jo Van Fleet steals the show as the Matriarch who refuses to leave her home before it's flooded by the TVA.....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054476/

Excerpt from The Vanishing American Actor

"the Method hasn’t really caught on in the 21st century. Instead, the best of the young British and Australian actors are coming from stagecraft schools, including Britain’s hallowed Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). British producer Andrea Calderwood told the BBC in a 2010 interview that craft and technique are the key things American filmmakers are looking for when it comes to acting."

http://www.straight.com/article-691881/vancouver/missing-american-hero

jrd

with one of the first Method actors Montgomery Clift,

There's a funny story about Monty Clift and Hitchcock (who hated method actors): the Montgomery Clift character is coming out of a court house in "I Confess" and Hitchcock wanted him to hit a mark and then look up at the building across the street.

Montgomery Clift replied that he "didn't know whether I would do that" (look up at the building). Hitchcock then explained that he had no choice in the matter, because the next shot was a cut, from Clift's POV, to the building across the street.

A more indulgent director would have created a motivation for the look, but you get the idea.

driftwood

Method acting can be fun. (

)

jleo

There could be enough anecdotes around for a book on Hitchcock's anti-method! ...

--After rehearsing just a few scenes with co-star Sean Connery, Tippi Hedren asked Alfred Hitchcock, "Marnie is supposed to be frigid - have you seen him?" referring to the young Connery. Hitchcock's reply was reportedly, "Yes, my dear, it's called acting."

Enforced Method Acting

Method Acting: noun — An acting technique in which actors try to replicate the real-life emotional conditions under which the character operates, in an effort to create a life-like, realistic performance.

Enforced Method Acting: noun — An acting technique in which actors give a life-like, realistic performance because no one warned them what was going to happen.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EnforcedMethodActing

The 15 Best Instances of Enforced Method Acting

http://crushable.com/entertainment/the-15-best-instances-of-enforced-method-acting/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+b5media%2Fcrushable+%28Crushable%29

vicharris

"Just hit the fucking mark son" :)

Dazza

Nah Arnold is the king of enforced method acting

Those comments about relaxing and flow, can apply to any art when you become proficient. Sounded like he was talking about yoga or taichi to me

sam_stickland

Hitchcock: "When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'"

To be fair, I don't think it was just method actors he hated: "I didn't say actors are cattle. What I said was, actors should be treated like cattle.". And there's that story him beating a cameraman he couldn't stay handcuffed overnight, but secretly slipping laxative into his drink!

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

Tags in Topic

Top Posters