Acting in Film

passing on the torch. Don't take my experience for bleeding gospel. Just take it and run!
-Michael Caine,
January 1997

    01992Jim Henson Productions, Inc.
    THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL
    Directed by Brian Henson. Walt Disney Pictures, 1992.
    Pictured with Beaker, Kermit the Frog and Bunsen Honeydew

     

Movie
Acting:
An
Overview

    The ordinary man in the street doesn't get up in the morning and say to himself, "How shall I act today? What impression shall I give?" Ile just lives his life, goes about his business thinking his thoughts. A film actor must be sufficiently in charge of his material and in tune with the life of his character to think his character's most private thoughts as though no one were watching him-no camera spying on him. The camera just happens to be there. They say you've learned a foreign language when you start dreaming it. A film actor must be able to dream another person's dreams before he can call that character his own.
    The first time you go out in front of a camera is not like going out on a first date. You don't have to make a special impression. The camera doesn't have to be wooed; the camera already loves you deeply. Like an attentive mistress, the camera hangs on your every word, your every look; she can't take her eyes off you. She is listening to and recording everything you do, however minutely you do it; you have never known such devotion. She is also the most faithful ]over, while you, for most of your career, look elsewhere and ignore her.

    If this amorous relationship with the camera makes movie acting sound easy, think again. Behaving realistically and truthfully in front of a camera is an exacting craft, one that requires steadfast discipline and application. Film acting was never easy, but during the past 30 years, this craft has become even more demanding, partly because of changes in technology, partly because of the requirements actors and directors have placed on themselves, and partly because of shifts in audience expectations.
    If you catch somebody "acting" in a movie, that actor is doing it wrong. The moment he's caught "performing" for the camera, the actor has blown his cover. He's no longer a private character in a private world. Now he's a highly paid actor on contract to speak these lines for the public. Good-bye illusion. Good-bye career.
    In the early talkies, actors came to the movies from a theatre tradition and, not surprisingly, they performed in a way that was designed for the theatre. "l'hey didn't just talk-they delivered orations as if to the last rows of the balcony. No one seemed to tell them that there was no balcony. To some extent this highly theatrical performing was necessary because the microphone was completely stationary in those days. The mike, in fact, was generally stuck in a bunch of flowers in the middle of a table, so if the actors moved away from the table, they had to raise their voices. But the technology is infinitely more sophisticated now. These days, microphones can be hidden under a shirt collar or in the fold of a dress and can catch an actor's softest whisper. There is no need for an actor to raise his voice artificially. In fact, he must do just the opposite.

    )1990 Casei RcWres Al tights reserved. Photo Ciecit Lprrre WzbergCorsdr Pic*ns.
    A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM
    Directed by Jan Egleson. Corsair Pictures, 1990.
    Pictured with Elizabeth McGovern.

PLAY FOR THE MOMENT; IMMORTALITY WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF
    The style of acting has changed, too. In the old days, if an actor had to cry in a scene, he'd launch into a big emotional number to show the audience his grief. Ile would probably base his performance on what he'd seen other actors doing in acclaimed performances. Whether that method was effective or not, it was the tradition of the times.
    The modern film actor knows that real people in real life struggle not to show their feelings. It is more truthful, and more potent, to fight against the tears, only yielding after all those defense mechanisms are exhausted. If today's actor emulates film, he'd be better off watching a documentary. The same is true of drunkenness. In real life, a drunk makes a huge effort to appear sober. A coarsely acted stage or film drunk reels all over the place to show you he's drunk. It's artificial. And eventually, that kind of acting puts up a barrier between the actor and the audience, so that nothing the character says or does will be believed. Credibility becomes an issue; and once an issue,