How

Much of the commentary on actors performances is related to their appearance and how their fictional characters behaved. Looks can be deceiving – the quality of the acting has little to do with the actors wardrobe or physical traits. We, viewers, do enjoy the good looking / pretty / hot performers. Could Brad Pitt be too good looking for his acting ? (I thought he created a great character in the recent, Burn After Reading) Actually Brad illustrates the superficiality of acting discourse on the internet, below are a few example headlines.

• Is Brad Pitt a great actor or just too handsome for words?
• Who’s a better actor Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp – who’s got more stuffed in their box office
• I never used to be a fan of Brad Pitt movies, until he married Angelina Jolie

So what does one consider in evaluating acting for acting’s sake? What should we as an audience look at, if it’s not topless actors, what is it. Why not just fill movies with models who talk?

Well i thought i’d list out the things i look for, consider and admire. But first i think i should share my definition acting – Acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. (usually attributed to Sanford Meisner, though some also say it comes from Lee Strasberg or Stanislavsky depending on the translation). This is related to Shakespeare’s definition of acting in Hamlet, “to hold as it were a mirror up to nature.”

We’ll start with a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for good acting – relaxation.

Definition: to relax – to relieve from nervous tension

10 ways to identify good acting – 1. relaxed actors are good

When you’re looking at an actor, are they physically relaxed, do they look like they can move easily, are they breathing, is their face locked down in some “look” or is a range of expression visible in their features. Even in extreme (imaginary) circumstances, when an actor is relaxed, we can identify more strongly with what’s going on. When i see a tense actor, i think they need to learn how to relax more. A corollary to being relaxed is being able to express – so an actor with so much plastic surgery or botox that their face no longer moves, has taken themselves out of the art form.

Don’t be confused by the word relax, in this context it doesn’t mean pass out, lay down and have a shot of tequila (of which i’ve sworn off since that night out with Dave (Patrón) Mason in 2003). It’s in the sense of an athlete using the necessary muscular action to achieve what’s needed, or animals which are almost always very relaxed. Actually relaxation in this sense is important for many things, at a recent ashtanga yoga workshop with David Swenson, the first thing he spoke about was relaxation. He mentioned animals level of relaxation as a model for us humans, a cheetah is a very relaxed animal, when it’s time to run some of it’s muscles are “tensing” (contracting) at near maximal levels so it can accelerate. If you’ve seen a slow motion video of cheetah’s running (this one’s chasing a ball – Phantom camera 1000fps), their faces are very relaxed. So under this definition they’d still be “relaxed” because they’re using the muscular action needed to achieve the task – catching some gnu (wildebeest) by the neck and killing it (The yogaman left out this last violent part of the analogy). You don’t need to add tension to your face or body to do yoga or run down a wildebeest. It doesn’t work for acting either.

Likewise, a “relaxed” actor could be doing all kinds of things physically and going through all kinds of human emotions with the muscles doing what they need to at the time they do it. There is no need for extra tension. A tense actor is a constipated actor, they are literally blocked up, holding on for no reason.

Sometimes the word “relax” is used to mean “calm down” or “just chill” or “be cool”, that’s not what we want for acting, and I’m not using it in that sense. So basketball fans may say Kobe Bryant needs to “relax” because he’s getting too upset at a game. The problem is, he’s very physically relaxed and is feeling a lot of emotions that just come out. That’s what we want from actors. We’ll come back to the sports analogy and “Kobe’s angry face,” after we describe the things to look for.

How do you spot tension in an actor

• face locked in some expression – if they’re relaxed, expressions will wash over their face
• body held rigidly in some pose – shoulders could be rigid with arms crossed or they look stiff in some way.
• use of un-natural gestures – hands waving, pointing, or arms move up together like a penguin;
• they don’t seem to move like a regular human – doing some kind of actor walk
• voice is choked off, the actor isn’t able to express themselves freely, not referring to volume, but sometimes you can literally here an actor stuck with tension in their voice.
• stuck in some kind of a verbal pattern where every line comes out sounding the same because it’s in the same rhythmical pattern (this may deserve it’s own category, but it is an outgrowth of tension and how the actor memorized their lines) dadadata ba, badadata da repetita repetita … verbal pattern repeats.

[See post to watch Flash video]
(edited down from a youtube video by JalenTV http://jalenrose.com.) This video shows how relaxed Kobe Bryant was during the game and features Jack Nicholson court-side.

After a google search for “Kobe angry face” I thought the video and a sports analogy might serve our purpose of identifying tension and relaxation, that way it’s not about one particular actor. The end of the video shows Kobe’s expression which some have described as having an “angry face” or looking “grumpy.” In the video excerpt from Game 1 of the 2009 NBA finals, did he look in any way physically tense to you? You might use the word intense but he is not locked up in any way. From an actor’s point of view, he is actually relaxed, connected to himself, determined and very present – he’s not “acting” for anybody here – he doesn’t care what anyone thinks – he’s focused on the game. It’s not a static grimace or put on face, he’s relaxed and the expression moves.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that in this politically correct America, there is criticism of Kobe for feeling what he’s feeling when he’s playing the game AND letting it show. Are his internet critics seriously suggesting he paste a big smile on his face – “just add some tension Kobe, we don’t care if you win the game or play well, we just think everyone on TV should smile at us, oh and while you’re playing the game why don’t you worry about what people think about you, we’re sure that will help.” It won’t help Kobe’s brilliant athleticism and it doesn’t help actors.

You don’t see players in the NBA playing tense, the professionals are all physically relaxed. When players get tense, that’s when they miss shots and make mistakes. We talk about these errors as they “choked”, “froze”, or “tensed up.” So, a very relaxed human can perform very complex physical tasks. They’re not holding onto what ever emotions they’re experiencing with unnecessary muscular tension, feelings flow through them.

Same in dance, sure a dancer has to move and put their bodies into positions, but they only use the muscular force they need. Students and amateurs may be tense at the ballet academy, but not the pros. Why should acting be any different than sports and dance? If humans perform better on the court, field, or stage when they are relaxed, should we be surprised that relaxed actors are better or to put it another way when you notice an actor in trouble, are they tense?

Look around you in your day to day environment, who’s tense and who’s relaxed. Who would you rather look at? See if you can tell the difference between tense actors and relaxed actors. What do you think? When you see a performance you really admire, see if you feel like saying wow that actor was so relaxed.

The clip from this scene is in the post Budd Schulberg RIP – i could’ve been a contender. And the script excerpt is in On The Waterfront – INT—TAXICAB—EVENING.

Published in 1988, Kazan’s autobiography contains many stories and comments on his life and films. Speaking of Brando in On The Waterfront, Kazan writes:

If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film in America, I don’t know what it is

In a twenty page chapter describing the trials and tribulations of making this film Kazan does cover this iconic scene.

The most famous scene of the film, the one played over and over on TV until I got sick of it but never so often that I didn’t marvel at Marlon Brando’s and Rod Steiger’s performances, was the scene in the taxicab. It is the perfect example of how this picture was made by a series of accidents and misfortunes that turned out well in the end. When we started on it in the morning, everything seemed wrong, because everything was wrong. My original intention had been to shoot the scene in a real taxi, an actual cab in traffic. I was lucky I didn’t, of course, because if I had, I never would have got the performances I did. Then this seemed too difficult and too expensive for Sam Speigel [Producer], so he procured for us a shabby old taxicab shell, which he had placed in a small shabby studio. I asked to have a projection or frame seen through the rear window. When we got to the studio that morning, Boris Kaufman [Cinematographer] and I found that Sam, to save a big bill, had not arranged for the rear-projection equipment. Boris was upset and I was upset. There wasn’t time before Brando’s departure at four o’clock to do a hell of a lot, so Boris solved the problem in the simplest way possible, by putting a small venetian blind across the window at the back of the cab shell and shooting straight in to avoid the side windows, except for an edge that he caught with a flickering light to suggest traffic going by. We had some of the crew shake the taxi shell to suggest movement, and that was it; we thought it a crude, primitive solution, but we got by with it. The audience watches the actors, not the taxi, not the traffic outside.

Dealing with the technical problems and budget limitations is part of every film. Kazan knew Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger for years, having taught them acting classes at the Actors Studio in the late 1940s, and directing Brando on stage. Since they had a shared history of working together, there is a sense of an ensemble and a trust in each others work. Kazan’s description of directing by not directing (“not to do anything”) is enlightening to read.

I’ve been highly praised for the direction of this scene, but the truth is I didn’t direct it. By the time Boris and I had figured out what to do with the set, the morning was gone and Brando was leaving at four; there was nothing to do except put the actors in their places – who on which side of the seat? did it mater? – photograph them. By that time in the schedule, Brando and Steiger knew who they were and what the scene was about – they knew all that better than I did by then – so I didn’t say anything to them. Sometimes it’s important for a director to withdraw a little. If the characters are going right, to begin to talk about who they are and motivation and so forth may result in the actors’ becoming concerned with satisfying you instead of playing the scene. You can spoil a scene by being too much of a genuine director – call it showing off. Here the scene had been set in motion long before. I knew that and was smart enough that day or troubled enough by my technical problems not to do anything more.

By the time Marlon Brando had to leave. I hadn’t photographed Rod Steiger’s close-up, and it was the last thing I did, reading Marlon’s lines myself from off camera. Rod had reason to be annoyed; in fact, I doubt that he ever quite forgave me for slighting his “side” of the scene. He said I treated Marlon better than I did him. He was right, I did, but in this case it didn’t hurt the scene, Rod was excellent. I believe that what happened hurt his self-esteem but not his performance. If Steiger has played any scene better than that one, I have not seen it.

The creativity of Brando evidenced by his going so far away from the cliche and the obvious is described by Kazan. A more conventional actor might play the boxer, confronted by a gun and reacting in some violent way.

But of course the extraordinary element of that scene and in the whole picture was Brando, and what was extraordinary about his performance, I feel, is the contrast of the tough-guy front and the extreme delicacy and gentle cast of his behavior. What other actor, when his brother draws a pistol to force him to do something shameful, would put his hand on the gun and push it away with the gentleness of a caress? Who else could read “Oh, Charlie!” in a tone or reproach that is so loving and melancholy and suggests that terrific depth of pain? I didn’t direct that; Marlon showed me, as he often did, how the scene should be performed. I could never have told him how to do that scene as well as he did it….

Karl Malden, ACTOR: I did two plays with Marlon in New York before we did the films.

KING: How was he on stage?

MALDEN: On stage, the first play that we were in together was a play written by Maxwell Anderson called “A Truckline Cafe.” It was a play that only ran for eight days, but we were both playing very small parts. I was in the first two acts, and he was in the third act. And in the third act, he came in as a ex second world war hero, and he was talking to his wife in this truckline cafe, and said, “let’s go walk on the pier.” They went out and walked on the pier. And he came back in about 15 minutes, soaking wet, and he had a scene at the table. It lasted about five minutes, and when it was over, and he stood up to make an exit, the play couldn’t go on for at least a minute and a half.

Other people had to just sit there and wait until they stopped. There was screaming, shouting, stamping of the feet. I’ve never seen it before. And from that time on, I thought this boy should be looked at. I’ve got to see whether it’s for real.

This is a classic example of the adage there are no small parts, only small actors (sometimes attributed to Milan Kundera or Stanislavsky). Brando’s commitment to his preparation involved running up and down a flight of stairs prior to this entrance. Charles Durning described seeing this production: “I thought he [Brando] was a guy they pulled in off the street. Too good to be an actor.” (from wikipedia) The play was directed by Harlod Clurman and produced by Elia Kazan.

Karl Malden (on Larry King) …
And in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” when we did the play, which ran for two years, and we shared a dressing room together for two years, he absolutely, when he came on stage, the difficult part is nobody looked at anyone else.

Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire 1948 (photo by Van Vechten)

More from the interview, here’s Robert Duvall talking about the 1966 film The Chase, directed by Arthur Penn based on the Horton Foote play adapted by Lillian Helman.

Larry King: Robert Duvall, what was it like to work with him?

Robert Duvall, ACTOR: Well, it was terrific. I worked with Marlon three times. And I worked with him first on “The Chase,” and what I learned from him specifically was, he was talking with somebody having coffee. They called him to do a scene, they said action, he did the scene, and they said cut, he came back to the table. You know, it was all the same. He eliminated that sense of a beginning.

So in other words, he eradicated that sense of a beginning, so it was all one thing. And I learned that from him. And it was great working with him, because, you know, you really can’t break the mystery down. I think he had a certain facile sense of irreverence that he used to negate all nervousness. He paraphrased Shakespeare by saying, you know, if it’s too important on your face, then it can become negative, this and that, you know, nervousness, whatever. So I think that irreverence that he knew how to use so skillfully, really, really neutralized all that sense of any kind of a nervousness or whatever. So it was really just him in the moment. Beautifully.

Marlon Brando and Harry Dean Stanton both appeared in the Missouri Breaks 1976.

Larry King: Harry, he was also very playful. He was funny. He was…

Harry Dean Stanton, ACTOR: He was one of the most multifaceted personalities I’ve ever seen in my life.

King: He’d call you on the phone and talk?

Stanton: He’d call me at 3:00 in the morning. We’d talk for two hours. He taught me the monologue from “Macbeth.” A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. And then we’d give a segue into that…

from Larry King show Aired July 2, 2004 – 21:00 ET (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/02/lkl.01.html)
interesting to read the entire transcript with more comments about Marlon from these actors as well as by Eve Marie Saint, Matthew Broderick and columnist James Bacon

Sometimes you have to hunt out great performances in films that are not too often seen. Here’s a clip i found of Anna Magnani and Marlon Brando in The Fugitive Kind 1960.

The performances are fantastic and I loved the Directing / Cinematography (Sidney Lumet / Boris Kaufman) with extended close ups, interesting angles, an upside down shot and expressionistic lighting.

In fact i like it so much, i’ll show a set of stills below, partly in response to the wikipedia quotation of a “observations” by Jonathan Rosenbaum,In the Chicago Reader.

Unfortunately, director Sidney Lumet, who’s often out of his element when he leaves New York, seems positively baffled by the gothic south and doesn’t know quite what to do with the overlay of Greek myth either.

This sequence looks gothic to my eye and the Marlon Brando as Val (Orpheus Descending) looks like a greek figure in the shot where he’s trapped between the blasts of water and the flames.

“The reason the theatre is mediocre, it has been for a long time, is the state of our world, the state of our country, it’s mediocre. it’s afraid to move this way or that way. i know i’m right. i may not know the theatre, but i know the country.

it is afraid to move. it is afraid to progress. it is afraid to be enthusiastic. it’s afraid to be wrong. afraid to move on afraid to have enthusiasm. it’s afraid to take a chance it’s afraid to have courage

this always makes me angry because life is a losing game and you might as well enjoy it. after all they say you’re gonna die. once in a while it occurs even to me. so it’s a losing game, but what an adventure. what fun this flop is.

Harold Edgar Clurman (September 18, 1901 – September 9, 1980) was an American theater director and drama critic, most famous for being one of the three original founders of the New York City’s Group Theater. He was drama critic for The New Republic (1948–52) and The Nation (1953–1980).

I was excited to see him speaking in this video, as i’ve only read about him and read some of his books.

• On Directing
• The Fervent Years: The Group Theatre And The Thirties
• The Collected Works of Harold Clurman (The Applause Critics Circle)

Thanks to actor Allan Rich for posting this “My Mentor Harold Clurman” video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2iGQV_H4PQ . PBS had a show about Harold in their American Masters series, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/clurman_h.html , unfortunately the PBS videos don’t currently work online.

from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Clurman

At the age of twenty Harold moved to Paris, where he shared an apartment with composer Aaron Copland. In Paris, he saw all sorts of theatrical productions, and was especially influenced by the work of Jacques Copeau and the Moscow Art Theatre. Clurman returned to New York in 1924 and found work as an extra in plays, then became a stage manager and play reader for the Theatre Guild. He briefly studied Stanislavsky’s system under the tutelage of Richard Boleslavsky and became Jacques Copeau’s translator/assistant on his production of “The Brothers Karamazov.”

Clurman began to realize that the standard American theatre, though successful at the box office was not providing the captivating experience that he wanted. Together with the like-minded Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, he began to create what would become the Group Theatre. In November 1930, Clurman began leading group discussions, describing his desire to found a permanent theatrical company that would produce plays dealing with important modern issues.

In the summer of 1931, the first members of the Group Theatre rehearsed for several weeks in the countryside to prepare for their first production, The House of Connelly by Paul Green, directed by Strasberg. Clurman was the scholar of the group–he knew multiple languages, read widely, and listened to a broad array of music while Strasberg dealt with acting and directing and Crawford dealt with the business side of things.