Monday, October 19, 2009
Comedy is very serious business
It came to mind because I finally saw Inglorious Basterds yesterday. I had heard a great deal of good buzz about it, but the reviewers have been less kind. Here is what Kenneth Turan of the LA Times had to say:
The chapters of "Inglourious Basterds" at first focus on these plot strands one by one, but by the time they all come together in a finale that rewrites history with a particularly Tarantino flourish, it is hard to care what happens to anyone in them.
And for my money, Turan nailed it (Manohla Dargis of the New York Times came to a similar conclusion by a different route). Tarantine had all of the stylishness and outrageousness that we have come to expect from him, but he does not understand that if we are to care much, even in a stylish romp, the actors need to care deeply about what they are after. The proof positive that they don't is that as the various characters meet their final destinies in the end, it just doesn't matter to us (SPOILER ALERT). When the Ufa starlet turned spy for the British is strangled in a penultimate sequence, we view it with apathy. When the cinema owner is killed by her noisome suitor moments before destroying the entire Nazi junta, we can only shrug. The immilation of the Nazis in the cinema itself feels like an afterthought. And the carving of the Swastika into the forehead of the oily Landa seems to be without consequence.
I admired the performance of Sacha Waltz, who played Landa. His poisonous charm and graciousness were quite pleasurable to watch. Who doesn't like to be seduced? But because his performance was all about the blood lust of the hunter, and there was nothing of the desperation that he would have felt as an officer of a collapsing Reich and perpetrator of abominations, his switching sides at the end simply doesn't rate. It msy have been a writing problem as well; if Mr. Tarantino had asked for this value from this skilled actor, and built in an opportunity for him to display it, he no doubt would have. But for us to feel real vindication at him being branded a Nazi at the end, we needed to feel his wish to escape his destiny much more keenly.
And the same is true of the other characters. The Jewish cinema owner seems to regard the Nazis with annoyance and disdain, but there is none of the visceral hatred of someone who has witnessed the slaughter of her whole family. So the payoffs aren't there.
It is these kinds of failings that makes the movie a fun but forgettable romp. We can only hope that Mr. Tarantino stumbles into some gravitas on the way to his next movie.
In the class, we strive to get in touch with the visceral need that drives any character that we play to fight their fights. Fighting well is certainly important, but knowing what you are fighting for moreso.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
"But you don't rehearse when you get on TeeVee..."
Think again.
The idea that the way that television is produced makes intensive scene study obsolete is a fatuous one. The fact is, when you show up for your TV show shoot, you bring whatever readiness to go the distance that you have in with you, and nothing more. There is a persistent fantasy that when opportunity knocks, the actor, through a combination of talent and determination, will rise to the challenge and somehow deliver something extraordinary, something memorable, because, after all, they picked him, the TV people did, and they must know, so that must mean he's "got it", whatever "it" is.
Sadly, no.
The ability to move quickly to the essence of what is transpiring in a scene, an essence which is never explicit in the text the actor is given to speak, and to work from that essence, is something that is acquired through lengthy study, hard work, and bumping one's head against one's own misconceptions. It is the result of a change in how people and situations are viewed, and an understanding of the way incidents matter to the characters involved. The scales have fallen from the eyes of such an actor, but this is not easily purchased. Anyone who promises a quick and easy way to achieve great acting is probably going to offer you a set of Ginsu knives if you act now.
Consider the fact that actors such as Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Paul Giamatti, Frances McDormand and Patricia Clarkson all attended the Yale School of Drama, a three year conversatory program that trained them to act in plays. All went on to have stellar careers in Hollywood, some of which are still in progress. They are all enormously gifted actors, and probably would have found a way to flourish no matter what path they took, but I am sure that many of them would say that their training at the Drama School was excellent preparation for what came after. It is the experience of having taken acting classes with master teachers, and of working on countless productions, examining roles in depth and taking time to develop them across substantial rehearsal processes, that prepared them to work quickly, intuitive, incisively when the situation called for it.
Can you imagine someone saying that since they were only going to play jazz improvisation on the piano, they were not going to learn to read music or to learn to play any previously composed music? The ability to improvise and work spontaneously comes from an intimate familarity with the medium in question, that comes in turn from lengthy exposure to the patterns that recur in various forms again and again. The only way out is through, a wise person once said. Wanting to be able meet the challenge of working spontaneously on a quick timetable without putting in the time to learn to work well under less strained circumstances is wanting a way out without going through. And except for those very few, freakishly talented exceptions, that isn't going to happen. All the other people showing up for the call you are going to have been to the same Acting for the Camera classes you have. The question is, what else have you got?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 07, 2009
"Everyone works every class": and what's wrong with that
This from a prominent LA acting teacher's site:
Because class size is restricted to 12-14 actors, each actor works in every class.
Let's say that the classes being described meet for three hours a week. Assuming two person scenes, that is 6-7 scenes that have to be presented in class every week. Let's suppose 6. Let's also assume that there is no time in class spent on any other issues, and that each pair uses no time to get their scene set up or change into their rehearsal clothes, and that there is no break for the whole three hours. That these assumptions would all hold seems a bit improbable, but let's assume them to be the case for now. Then each pair gets 30 minutes. Assuming it takes at least five minutes to set up and present (again, probably optimistic), then that leaves twenty-give minutes of work from the teacher for each scene. Given that we are talking about a two person scene, that means each actor gets about twelve and a half minutes worth of attention from the teacher when they get up.
This, to my mind, is woefully inadequate. And anyone who thinks that it is adequate is seriously kidding themselves about what it takes to change habits. Because that is what we are talking about when we are getting people to develop as actors. And not just habits, but habits which are often unconsciously held: we don't even know that we have the habit in question. The habit can be a way of looking at the scene, or a character, or acting itself, or a way of moving, speaking, or breathing, or of dealing with the physical life of a scene. Habits are notoriously difficult to change. Just ask anyone you know who has tried to quit smoking. Then think of changing a habit that you haven't even noticed that you have. It probably takes some work to even get the actor to recognize something she is doing reflexively is, in fact, a habit.
In acting class at the Drama School at Yale, we saw maybe two scenes in a three hour class. That's because these teachers were not only concerned with our work in the scene, but also with our process in arriving at that work, and our way of thinking about the work. All of this takes time to tease out. There is just no way that you are going to bring anyone to a fundamentally new understanding of anything in twelve and a half minutes.
And it didn't bother me that we didn't get up more, because it was eye=opening to watch the teachers work the the other students. Now, I can understand that in a class in which the teacher is offering nothing particularly revelatory, it would be a drag to have to watch that teacher coach a lot of other people, and only occasionally get up to work. But that was not the case in my classes at the Drama School: Earl Gister and Evan Yionoulis are profoundly gifted teachers who regularly provided insights which were nothing short of electrifying. Their passion for the plays we worked on and for the art of acting itself was a constant source of inspiration. And in watching them work with other students, we gained perspective about the technique we were learning which we could not have gotten when we were up doing a scene, as invaluable as that was.
The time to delve deeply into a scene and into an actor's way of approaching the scene is, to my mind, indispensable. This is the only way that the clenched fingers of habit can be peeled back, and real growth can occur. Twelve and a half minutes is barely enough time for a teacher to initiate a dialogue with the student about the scene and the character. Getting to the root of anything takes a lot more than that.
So why do teachers make this everyone-works-every-class promise? Because they perceive that that is what the students want, that is what gets the proverbial asses in the seats. And maybe many students want that, or think they do. And why do they want it? Well, if I had to guess, I would say that it has to do with impatience and the culture of instant gratification. Rather than wait for a longer, more satisfying session with the instructor, the student wants to get up and get a little feedback each week, not too much, just a little bit, nothing that would be too challenging to address. The truth is that the students, in my classes, as in many others, are expected to meet outside class to rehearse their scene. So it's not that they are not getting to WORK if they don't get up in class each week. It's that they are not getting the opportunity to be in front of the rest of the class and the instructor, in the spotlight, as it were. It may be harsh to say this, but I think it's the truth. It is the students who recognize the value of sustained investment in their own rehearsal process over time, with periodic and thorough review from the instructor, that really grow. Anyone looking for a twelve-and-a-half-minute-a-week fix is basically looking for a fairy godmother to wave her magic wand. And fairy godmothers are not as frequently sighted in this day and age as they once were.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Pandora: the acting exercise
A novel concept, but it definitely has some flaws. One is that when you identify a song that you like, Pandora will put it on "heavy rotation", playing it quite often, to the point where you may quickly get sick of the song in question. Pandora does give you the option to tell it not to play a song for a month. However, I found I had to use this option really often, more often than I would have liked. Repetitiveness is definitely the biggest setback to Pandora.
But like most things in life, Pandora is what you make it. If you are vigilant about giving it feedback about what you like and don't like, and consign songs you like but hear too much to the Don't Play for a Month Shelf, Pandora will probably work out pretty well. It doesn't work so well for you if you go on auto-pilot. If you just leave it to its own devices, and don't give it continuous feedback, you will find yourself annoyed by its tendency to replay songs it thinks you MIGHT like endlessly, and will probably end up shutting it off in frustration.
But why would anyone go on auto-pilot, when they have the option to determine the nature of what gets played? If you have used Pandora, you probably can answer this question, but if you haven't, you might not be able to right off. Then answer is that having to constantly take actions based on our responses to what we are receiving from our environment can be very, very taxing. And there are consequences to our choices: Pandora might misunderstand WHY I dislike a given song, and this might skew the whole aesthetic. And if I say no to a given song, then I am banishing it FOREVER. But what if I'm wrong, what if it really is a good song and I just not hearing it yet? DECISIONS! ONOOOOOOOZZZZZZZ! Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that.
What does this have to do with acting? To act well, you have to be in touch with your vulnerability to the fictional people you are involved with, i.e. your scene partners. You must discover and embody a need that you can pursue from these partners AT EACH MOMENT of your life in the scene. There is no local color, no exposition, no irrelevant chatter. If you are in a situation where you have an URGENT NEED (and you should conceive of EVERY scene you do in this way, no matter how quotidian or everyday it may seem on the surface" Anton Chekohv wrote in his journal that "Men dine, just dine, and in that moment their destinies are decided and their lives destroyed."), then EVERYTHING that happens, at each moment, is either giving you a piece of what you need or depriving you of what you need. There is no grey area, no dead air. However, it is very often not obvious to us when we act, since we are entering into someone else's world, whether what we are receiving is giving us what we need or not. Many of us, when we aren't sure, choose to merely coast until we come to a part of the scene where we are sure, and then we start to pursue what we need in earnest. This will mean we only fulfill the role in a piecemeal way, and our own experience in the scene or the role will be much less than it could be.
Which brings me back to Pandora. To do the Pandora acting exercise, set aside ten minutes a day to listen to Pandora. As you listen, make a decision about EACH SONG you hear: do you give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down or a Don't Play This Song For a Month? Think Simon Cowell: the song either makes the cut or it doesn't. No half-measures. If you have never used Pandora before, you may have a very strong reaction to the initial songs you hear, but eventually you will start to hear songs that you have less of a strong feeling about, songs that will require you to listen more closely to your own internal aesthetic compass. And you will have to commit. You will have to come down on one side or the other. You will have to be attentive and fully alive: alive to the music, to what is coming at your from your world, and alive to your own reaction to it. It's what a Zen teacher once called "brutally simple." Ready to listen?
(This post is from the blog of the Mother of Invention Acting School in Los Angeles and San Francisco (www.utteracting.com): an acting class in Hollywood/Los Angeles and San Francisco for serious, motivated students.)
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