Acting and Actuality

The ‘Method’ Acting and

the British Acting Tradition

Table of Contents

1) Realist Acting

2) The Method Acting

3) The British Tradition

Realism Acting

• Performance > visual elements (appearance, gestures, facial expressions) and sound (voice, effects)

• Good performance = Realistic performance• Bad performance = Unrealistic performance

• Mimetic performance – historical and relative

The Method Acting

• The Performance style and the training system widely accepted in New York theatre circle in the 1950s.

• Especially in the Actor's Studio

The Method Acting

• The Actor’s Studio, 432 West 44th Street, New York

The Method Acting• 'The Method' or 'the

System', an offshoot of a system of training actors and rehearsing which was developed by Constantin Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre

The Method Acting• ‘Affective Memory’

• To portray a character’s emotions, the actor is required to recall the moment in their lives when they felt the relevant or similar emotions.

• Train the actor to work from within

The Method Acting

• Belief:

• Truth in acting can only be achieved by exploring a character's inner spirit, which must be fused with the actor's own emotions

The Method Acting

• The Actor’s Studio at 432 West 44th Street, NY• Founded by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, and R

obert Lewis• Intended to teach a refined version of ‘method

acting’ developed by the Group Theatre in the 30s.

The Method Acting

• The Group Theatre founded in 1931 by Lee Strasberg, Harold Clurman, and Cheryl Crawford in New York

The Method Acting

• Lee Strasburg took over the Studio in 1952

• The ‘Strasburg’ Method - to prepare an artist to feel and express the emotional subtexts of scripts

• Emotional Recall

The Method Acting

• Edward Albee, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Tennessee Williams (writers)

• Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, James Dean, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Harvey Keitel, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Sidney Poitier (actors)

Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts (actress)

The Method Acting• Rebel without a Cau

se (1955)• Jim Stark is the ne

w kid in town. He has been in trouble elsewhere. Here he also hopes to find the true love he doesn't get from his middle-class family.

The Method Acting

• On the Waterfront (1954)

• Terry Malloy dreams about being a boxer, while tending his pigeons and running errands at the docks for Johnny Friendly, the corrupt boss of the dockers union. Terry witnesses a murder by two of Johnny's thugs, and later meets the dead man's sister and feels responsible for his death.

The British Tradition

• British acting traditions - mastery of externals, based on close observation

• Exemplified by Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Bloomsbury, London

The British Tradition

• Richard Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Ralph Feinnes, Albert Finney, John Gielgud, Anthony Hopkins, Trevor Howard, Glenda Jackson, Ceila Johnson, Mike Leigh, Vivian Leigh, Roger Moore, Joe Orton, Peter O’Toole, Harold Pinter, Alan Rickman

Sir Lawrence Olivier

The British Tradition• 'I do not search the character for parts that are

already in me, but go out and find the personality I feel the author created. I hear remarks in the street or in a shop and I retain them. You must constantly observe: a walk, a limp, a run; how a head inclines to one side when listening; the twitch of an eyebrow; the hand that picks the nose when it thinks no one is looking; the mustache puller; the eyes that never look at you; the nose that sniffs long after the cold has gone.'

The British Tradition

• He molded his characters like sculptor or painter

• Makeup for Olivier: 'If you're wise, you always take off the part with your makeup.'

• Mimicing dialects: 'I always go to endless trouble to learn American accents, even for small television parts. If it's north Michigan, it's bloody well got to be north Michigan.'

The British Tradition

• Daniel Day-Lewis (1957 - )

• British character actor, known for versatility in the roles he play.

• Modern-day Olivier but his range of roles is even wider than the master.

The British Tradition

• My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

• Plays a role of a disillusioned, homosexual punk, who has a relationship with a former Pakistani classmate.

The British Tradition

• A Room with a View (1985)

• Plays a role of a upper-middle class gentleman who is intelligent but emotionally tight.

The British Tradition

• Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

• Plays a role of a young womanizing doctor, who grows more conscious of the oppressive political situation in Prague.

The British Tradition• My Left Foot (1989)• He plays a role of Ch

risty Brown who is spastic quadriplegic born to a large Irish family. He matures to be a writer who writes with his only functional limb, his left foot.

The British Tradition

• The Last of Mohicans (1992)

• Plays a role of a orphaned settler adapted and raised by the last of Mohicans.

The British Tradition

• The Age of Innocence (1993)• Plays a role of an American aristocrat already engaged

for marriage, who falls in love with his cousin.

The British Tradition

• In the Name of Father (1993)

• Plays a role of an Northern Irish youth, who is falsely accused of bombing a pub in England.

The British Tradition

• The Boxer (1997) • Plays a role of a

former IRA activist who is released from prison and opens a boxing gym to train young people.

The British Tradition

• Gangs of New York (2002)• Plays a role of one of the first gangsters in

Manhattan.

The British Tradition

• There Will Be Blood (2009)• Plays a role of a silver miner turned old man, who

ruthlessly quests for wealth in late 19th California

The British Tradition

• Nine (2009) • In this musical-romance, he plays a role of Italian

film director who is tormented by lack of inspiration and women.