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Hi Thomas. Consider looking into the profound impact of Robert Altman after 1970. His experimental approach included no rehearsal, improvisation, documentary style filming and non-actors. What we learned through his experimentation is now taken for granted in how actors and directors work today. The most obvious contribution being his use of unscripted dialogue and "mistakes" that capture the spirit of the moment in a given scene.
Hate to ride on this comment but I wanted to make a big point and hope you see it. 47:15 I would argue that even today, we still want acting & not completely natural. Jury Duty with James Marsden is actually acting that is trying to be truly natural. You can’t watch a movie today and think that looks completely natural. It’s pretending to be natural like how some fashion for women includes makeup that looks “natural” but clearly doesn’t look fully natural.
For anyone saying it's bad acting because it was sometimes over the top I say this. First of all some of the performances were not good that's right. But every decade has really good acting. Second and most importantly: Good acting isn't necessarily natural. Ask yourself this: Is there an audiobook you enjoyed because of the voice acting? Did you notice that the way voice actors speak is anything but natural? Yet we see them as great performances? It's because they follow a certain melody certain rules of emphasizing words generating patterns of speaking that we universally recognize as good acting. The mere fact that good hammy acting and bad hammy acting exist should tell us something. We instinctively recognize when someone is just bad and inconsistent trying to hide his lack of acting skills with big gestures and over the top enunciation or if he has absolute command over how he wants to sound. People like Cary Grant or even better concerning hammy/campy: TIM CURRY. Nobody can deny he can ham it up like no one else and make it work.
They're acting STYLES, which I think is really cool. I love old and new films, I love foreign films with different acting conventions... as long as the acting matches the style of the film and is part of telling a good story, I AM IN.
this is why I love South Korean cinema. There's something arresting about performances in classics like Oldboy and more modern films like Parasite, where there is a layer of surreality where characters aren't super realistic. Oldboy eating the octopus, or the level of manipulation by the family in Parasite isn't meant to be realistic. Instead the actors take you on a journey where the setting seems real, but characters don't act "normal". Also, this is why I love Lanthimos' films because he also has the actor's acting strange, surreal and inhuman, almost robotic, so instead of being confused by the surreal images of duck races in the Favourite, or the whole universe in the Lobster, we don't question it because we're already unfamiliar to the world. When everything is off kilter, we don't question when things break reality because there is no reality. We are existing in a foreign world that doesn't follow the rules so nothing can really take us out of the immersion.
Agreed. And you still see a few theatrical conventions even now. For example, if a character is supposed to be unhappy, but in-universe is supposed to be pretending to be happy to those around them, they always do a terrible job at pretending. To do otherwise is too confusing for the audience.
It's clear the industry (mainly Hollywood and London) only facilitates this one style of acting now though. The British stage acting of the 50s and 60's and the rise of hyperrealism as opposed to the character acting and personality of vaudeville and silent pictures.
Yeah people will automatically think one style is better than another when it's not. They're just different. For instance, it's why many people say the acting in the Star Wars prequels or Nicholas Cage is bad... when it's really that it's just a different, older style of acting dropped in the middle in a bunch of modern styles in pretty much all other films.
I think part of the reason that the new approach to acting has become the standard is the shift from stage to film. Theatrical acting often looks overwrought with the closeness of a camera. Presentational acting can get lost on a stage, but is perfect for the a camera.
I made the exact same point in my own comment. I think the reason so much early screen acting seems overly "theatrical" is because most of these actors were trained in the theater. Also, film was a super young art form. Like all young art forms, the unique properties of the art form were not fully understood. They weren't internalized by the actors or the directors. And so they continued to act with broad gestures and precise enunciation the way they would if they were trying to communicate to a massive theater crowd. It was only later that we understood how film's ability to present close-ups and clear dialogue even at a whisper could transform acting into something much more naturalistic.
I think this is true but what's fascinating to me is that the movement towards presentational acting starting in theater, and representational acting still is a valuable part of film acting to this day. So while they're was certainly a shift, and the relative closeness of the character certainly played a role, there's definitely some other forces driving each approach.
@@ThomasFlight I think it's actually not that suprising that this movement started in theater, and moved from there to film. In theater, a group of actors spend 6-8 intensive weeks together in rehearsal, and a large part of that time is spent on discussing the text, the characters and the world they are creating on stage. There is room for experimentation, especially in the first few weeks, and there is a continuity in the process that you don't get on film set, where the work is much more fragmented, and time is limited and not much room for experimentation or theorizing. Besides, this idea of theatrical acting and film acting being somehow opposites is an old cliche which isn't true anymore. Acting in film and theater are based on the same principles, it's just the medium is different, and what we call "theatrical acting" on film is most often actors that haven't adjusted to a different medium (or lacking guidance from the director)
I remember reading an interview with an actor transitioning from theatre to film. The first advice the film director gave him was: Remember - the camera can read your mind
You should do a video on actors who pretty much just play themselves, like Ryan Reynolds, and Adam Sandler. I think it would be interesting to see your take on how actors playing themselves affects their performances both negatively and positively.
Tom Cruise. All just flavors of himself. Most big actors are this way really. Very few change things up drastically every role. They are just trying to be natural and real.
Actor here! This was a great, well researched video. One thing I'd love to add is the idea of the "Actor's Toolbox". These days when you study acting, you learn about all of the various techniques and philosophies that you talked about, and we add all of that information into what we call the Actor's Toolbox. What this means is we have a broad base of knowledge that we can pull from depending on the needs of a specific character or production, because every role and collaboration requires something different.
For anyone saying it's bad acting because it was sometimes over the top I say this. First of all some of the performances were not good that's right. But every decade has really good acting. Second and most importantly: Good acting isn't necessarily natural. Ask yourself this: Is there an audiobook you enjoyed because of the voice acting? Did you notice that the way voice actors speak is anything but natural? Yet we see them as great performances? It's because they follow a certain melody certain rules of emphasizing words generating patterns of speaking that we universally recognize as good acting. The mere fact that good hammy acting and bad hammy acting exist should tell us something. We instinctively recognize when someone is just bad and inconsistent trying to hide his lack of acting skills with big gestures and over the top enunciation or if he has absolute command over how he wants to sound. People like Cary Grant or even better concerning hammy/campy: TIM CURRY. Nobody can deny he can ham it up like no one else and make it work.
@@EbonyPope Funny you should mention audiobooks, because some of my favorites actually have good acting, not the hammy unnatural "voice based" acting I think you're referring to. So I don't think I actually agree that good acting can be unnatural. I just suppose that a lot of people don't mind bad acting.
@@jed1nat Well neither audiobooks nor hammy acting are natural. Some audiobooks might be read a more natural than the way someone like Tim Curry would play it but they aren't truly natural. Nobody speaks like in an audiobook. My point was that for example voice acting in audiobooks do follow certain rules. Certain melodies how you pronounce a word or how a sentence sounds when you are enraged. It's the quality of how controlled it sounds that we perceive as good or bad acting. A bad actor is someone who is very unsure of his lines. One part is surely the exaggerated/artifical way of how he plays it but it's combined with a lack of control and self confidence. We all have seen bad actors. All I wanted to point out you can make other styles work as long as you are perceived as having full command of your facial expressions and the way you enunciate your words. The best example would be Tim Curry which I always reference. His roles of the butler in Clue or as Pennywise in IT are so iconic because of his overacting and hammy delivery. There absolutely are roles that command such a delivery because such histrionic people exist that are over the top. That have weird mannerisms. And that is why these roles are still memorable and considered well acted roles. Something really over the top can be really good in the hands of the right actor. I do not agree that it's just people unable to discern bad acting. In some cases it's so bad it's good but that is another category (Troll 2 comes to mind). We still wouldn't say it's an example of bad acting but we do that with Timy Curry's Pennywise. I think it's a good example of what good hammy acting means. That's why I chose it.
I've been at it for 30 years and it's very rare for me to ever question a direction. I do what he says. Film is a director's medium and that is what an actor must fulfill.
I mean, Gloria Swanson’s acting in Sunset Blvd was theatrical even for 1950. Her performance was more reflective of the silent era and early talkies. That’s one of the main points of her performance.
*Joe Gillis:* You're Norma Desmond! You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big. *Norma Desmond:* I _am_ big. It's the _pictures_ that got small.
@@JarrettOriginal Absolutely hitting it imo. Has there ever been a character in film who better represents--or an actress more suitably cast to embody--the fact of older "theatrical" expectations evolving out of existence? Already even in 1950, Billy Wilder knew that if Swanson embodied her classical style it would feel dated to the audiences. Why? Precisely because expectations had already changed. And this was a year prior to A Streetcar Named Desire, underscoring what @ThomasFlight points out here, that it really was an evolution in film-making, not simply a switch flipped by Brando in 1951.
Ian McKellan's issue that caused him to break down was less about the green screen and more about the fact that there were no other actors on set with him. He was acting by himself, in a green room, with blue Xs taped to sticks that were supposed to be dwarves around him. He had nothing to respond to except Peter Jackson woodenly reading the others' lines to him.
@@Avery_4272 While true the main difference is that it isn't an audition. Im surprised by OP's comment bc that just seems like such an odd decision for Peter Jackson to do, especially since he would know better.
@@samiai8905 Jackson was essentially extorted into doing the Hobbit movies on very short notice and did not have the planning and preparation time he would have wanted. Creating every prop multiple times (so you have it on different scales) and making special sets and props for forced perspective (like the funky wagon that let Elijah Wood be on the 'same bench' as McKellan but appear smaller because he was further away) takes a lot more time and effort than plunking an actor in front of a green screen. I don't blame McKellan for having trouble and getting upset, but Jackson was making do as best he could with really crap circumstances.
@@soniciris It's not just that, but even then he had originally only planned for two movies and at the last minute was forced into extending it to three. Every aspect of the Hobbit production was extremely overstretched and pretty much nobody was having a good time, especially by the end. Even on-set photos of Jackson show him looking basically dead.
I think Ewan McGregor also express some frustration with the extensive use of green screens when he was acting in the Star Wars prequels, and found it quite challenging. It was difficult to visualize the environment and react to elements that weren’t physically present.
This is why Nicholas Cage seems so out of place. He uses an older, theatrical style of acting, which a lot of non US countries still use, and it really stands out/clashes with the rest of Hollywoods acting.
My favorite Cage performances are Bringing Out the Dead and Weatherman, neither of which feels out of place for the characters. Shout out to Adaptation as well.
@@jangdi. Are you kidding? Kinski was a demonic madman and Cage would be the first to say so; that dude was RUNNING well before Cage came on the scene. They're both Expressionist actors, in a rich tradition of over-the-top *artificiality* that is sometimes used in contrast to naturalistic acting around them to heighten the sense of the bizarre. But what Cage is doing isn't "out of place"-- it's just something that's more the province of character / supporting actors. When the Expressionist performance shifts to the main character-- think Cagney in White Heat, or Pacino in Scarface-- the whole movie feels wild, crazy, off-balance.
My acting prof in college taught us something similar to 'The System.' He called it "GOTE" - Goal, Obstacles, Tactics, Expectation. This made so much more sense to me than Method Acting, or actually becoming the character. It helps you come up with the emotion or tactics you would convey for the context of the scene and character, but it keeps your self separate from the character, especially if this is a character that would do things you would personally never do, and you don't have to immerse your personal self into something/someone else.
As an actor myself (which I find most joy reading Stanislavsky’s and Hagen’s works), I love that you took the time to demystify the esoteric and conflicting aspects about how acting is perceived, taught, and understood. It can be so dense and exhausting for a multitude of reasons - but especially due to the mixing of the same terminology that can have entirely different interpretations, understandings, and overall application. Thank you for this video Thomas.
During the 70's when realism started taking over all the old directors, executives and producers all said it was a horrible idea. That because people delt with real life every day they'd never spend money on a ticket to be entertained by it. Ever since then, with a few exceptions, melodrama has been looked at as a joke by the average moviegoer and most don't even realize that "over acting" style can still be deliberate. In fact I can recall watching *Before The Devil Knows You're Dead* with my parents (a melodrama) and they were confused by the whole thing. They kept asking each other "why did she make that face? What did he just do with his hands?" And it's a little ironic considering they grew up with old Hollywood. So most contemporary directors wouldn't even attempt it. Does that mean melodrama is now innovative and new? On the other hand you can definitely take real dialogue too far. Almost every person I've ever talked to about it said they had to turn on the subtitles to understand what was being said in The Revenant due to all the mumbling.
Audio engineering has faced a lot of its own issues as cinema has evolved in the past couple decades, which has the largest portion of fault in how much more often we have to use subtitles these days.
I love that John Garfield realistically “relaxing” on a couch blew people’s minds back in the day. “Damn, he really seems relaxed!” I honestly loved this video though.
@@beyourself2444 Brando learned how to tame "the method" to create powerful performances, but James Dean is way over-rated. In my view, his performances are emotionally over the top. He wore his emotions on his sleeve and was far too melodramatic.
One reason I find Nicolas Cage so fascinating is that he offers an alternative acting model. Sure, he can do pure "naturalistic" acting and often does in his more acclaimed roles. But that's not his primary approach. He has an acting style he calls "nouveau shamanistic." It borrows elements from German expressionism and Japanese kabuki theater. The point is not to be realistic. The point is a kind of free, improvisatory expressiveness. Whether you like or dislike his acting choices, it's clear that he's not coming from a place of laziness or "bad" acting. He's making a deliberate creative choice, and it's deeply informed by his study of the history of acting.
I think his newer horror movie turn is what offers this way of looking at it. For instance, kick ass isn't over the top, but it's fun nonetheless. But there's a bit of sameness, for lack of a better word, than comes with his foray into more horror. His screaming and expressions in renfield seem like his screaming and expressions in longlegs, seem like his screaming and expressions in Mandy, etc. What was once fascinating because you didn't see it so often has become, funnily enough, pretty predictable. I was watching longlegs and the scene where he got in the car. Both me and my partner said, "He's probably going to yell here." Then he did. Lol I've kind of lost interest and fascination because it's all so similar at this point. He doesn't really have a variety of expressing angst, anger, or anything of the like in his horror movies.
@@shettywap I think the sameness is a trap actors fall in. Like to me Jack Nicolson started the slide to being just Jack Nicolson in a movie with Batman, as opposed to acting. He could still act, but there were more instances of phoning it in after that point.
@recoil53 I'm right with you. They become caricatures of themselves. Deniro did the same thing. Nic cage has the benefit of something like vampires kiss being over 30 years ago, but all that does is remind me that he's been reaching into that same bag of tricks since then. Lol I genuinely think people just have some sort of interest in when he'll pull out his "crazy" scenes. Well, if we know when you're going to do it and how you're going to do it, I simply can't be arsed at this point. Lol Anytime he's more reserved, it works a lot better. I don't much care for his acting even then, but he can still be solid. Kick ass, Pig, National Treasure, etc. All performances that I think are fine.
As a former acting student who is a currently working actor myself, this is hands-down the best video I’ve seen to explain “method acting” to people outside of this world. Very concise, very clear, very informative. Great job!
It warms my soul to hear more light cast on Stanislavski's deep and powerful legacy. When I first arrived in Moscow, there were two things I had to visit immediately: Red Square, and Stanislavski Theater. It brought tears of joy to experience both. Riding the blue line metro while reading "An Actor Prepares" was a surreal experience. As another actor commented, there are a few errors in your analysis regarding Adler and Strassberg's younger days, but I nevertheless stand in admiration of your videssay. We go with the tides, and we perfect the art - which it absolutely is, an art - taking knowledge from here and there. "Love the art in yourself, and not yourself in the art." - Stanislavski
There's quite a gulf between immersive research and living as though you are a character. Practicing sign language to play a person who is hearing impaired, learning legal shop talk to play a lawyer, practicing tennis if you are going to play a tennis star, this is going to lend your performance natural authenticity. This is, to me, utterly different from demanding to be called the character's name and carrying your performance into your personal life. That being said, losing your own identity into a character for a while is kind of amazing, and I imagine the majority of people who do this do so in moderation and know how not to risk themselves or others.
This is a really good point. Learning about your character is good. But in my opinion, if you have to feel like you literally are the character in order to give a good performance, then you aren't a very good actor. A good actor should be able to portray a character in a real way without becoming that character as a person.
I feel like learning how to play tennis for playing a tennis star is the basic minimum of RESEARCH. As for sign language, to me that feels like learning an entire movie script in a foreign language phonetically. At that point it's easier for the actor to actually learn at least the basics of the language, not to mention how it will lead to a better and more respectful performance. For my favourite Hungarian movie, the main cast (who play metro ticket controllers) spent a day actually working the metro trains and checking tickets. Their experiences helped them inhabit their characters and inspired at least one oft-quoted line of the movie. I don't think anyone's considered this an example of Method Acting(tm) in the same way refusing to break character or living in the desert is seen by some.
It must depend on how villainous and potentially harmful the role David Suchet saaid he needed therapy to get rid of the character in his thoughts and feelings, I thin it was a villain.
Cate Blanchett's recent layered performance in Tar is probably the best lived in character I have ever seen. Without relying much on camera trickeries, edits, close ups while inhabiting the character completely. A true acting legend
@@rics1883 That performance is the great divider between realistic and entertaining. Some, like I assume you, derive pleasure from seeing realism and believability. For me that was not enough, and the realism of Tar went too far, venturing into realm of boredom. Realism always carries a risk - would meeting a real life Lydia Tar be interesting? I've met people like her and they have been mildly irritating in short term, profoundly boring in long term. And Tar is a looooong movie.
@@charno_zhyem People do want to overrate the "method" and the "legends" behind it while forgetting acting and movies are fantasies. I act and I had a teacher and director of mine going for hyper realism which broke all the molds of myself, but in the end the impressive thing was my transformation not the play itself. Sometimes it is that which people enjoy: the act of acting not the movie itself. Let's be honest, it is self aggrandizing to make themselves look more intelligent than they are while forgetting what entertaining fantasy is.
My parents are acting teachers, so hearing the names Stanislavski, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and Uta Hagen again brought me back to sitting in on their acting classes
So one school of thought is that emotion gives birth to action, and the other is that action gives birth to emotion. It reminds me of an argument I had with a friend over whether smiling produces happiness or being happy produces a smile.
One thing that has to be mentioned with why it feels so different is the mid-Atlantic accent (cross between English and American) was an affectation in older movies that actors took up. People actually did speak that way, but it was mostly a learned accent taught in uppercrust schools as the proper way of speaking. It represented a higher station in society so a lot of actors picked up the affectation for the screen.
As an actor...I'd say it was because back then it was just that....ACTING. I think now it's EMMULATING. A lot of the time, people want to see movies to escape their problems, not be reminded of them, so I think there's something to be said about the old style of acting and why old films have stayed relevant even when they are very "act-y" and why they can feel so comforting to people. Tho I do love when I am watching a movie and I'm like WAIT THAT WAS GARY OLDMAN?! (It's always Gary Oldman or Christan Bale lmfao gotta love Daniel Day Lewis too, but he does so few films that you know he's going to be in something. Gary Oldman just pops up and his acting is so impeccable that you don't even realize it's him!!! I love it)
It just took everyone but Orson Welles a while to realize that the camera and microphone were 4 feet from their face, and they didn't have to shout to the folks in the cheap seats anymore.
Yeah, I was surprised this didn't come up in the video. You simply have to exaggerate facial expressions in a large theatre, otherwise the audience won't notice it. Hence the old-school theatre masks. Even when the cameras were close, it was a while until the image quality was high enough (both capturing it, and then displaying it on cinema, and then on low quality TVs) for subtlety to not get loss in the grain. I don't think that the ability to do high quality close ups means that acting was bound to become more naturalistic, but it was a prerequisite.
I was so caught off guard when I saw Citizen Kane for the first time, felt like someone made a 1960s movie all the way back in the 40s... and it's just this weird, inexplicable outlier
Thank you so much for this video! A lot of film buffs learn a ton about cinematography and a little about editing, lighting, scriptwriting, and some other things, but know so little about acting that they can't seem to even talk about acting at all. It's common, even in relatively educated film discussion spaces, for conversations about great acting performances to be boiled down to, "there's nothing of value to say about acting, aside from whether the performance works for the film or not." And that's so reductive that it could be said of any aspect of any artform. Of course the *most* important part of any artform, for the audience, is the final product. But the underlying questions of what goes into producing that art are important for understanding, discussing, and producing it. So kudos to you for doing the work to learn about acting, its history, and some of the techniques actors use, even including a scene breakdown! As you say, there are a lot of different techniques and approaches to acting, and as an artform, there is no one *right way* to do it. But there are a ton of tools for actors. Which tools an actor chooses to use comes down to which tools they have learned about or discovered for themselves, what they've experimented with and practiced, which of those tools the actor prefers, and what the desired outcome is for a given performance.
Acting comes from within. No matter how much we study - real talent will always outshine any method. I studied acting in Armenia, where reading Stanislavsky is a must. I faked-read it. Just could never force myself to read Stanislavsky, Chekhov or any of the others. They bored me. My dad, a director, told me you can only learn by doing and watching others' process of working. Even though I have 3 diplomas in acting, I personally learned it here and there, at private schools in La, at Improv Olympic and now through every film I come across. And TH-cam helps a lot. Thanks for such a thorough examination.
I always assumed it was because early actors hadn't internalized the difference between the screen and the stage. They were still acting like they would in a theater -- with over-enunciated dialogue and broad gestures designed to be understood by even the audience in the cheap seats. Movie directors also hadn't fully internalized this difference and so were unlikely to ask the actors to be more subtle. The art form is young, and with any evolving art form it takes a while to understand the unique properties of the form. The ability to do close-ups meant that even the smallest gesture could be conveyed to an audience. Similarly, you weren't having to project to be heard at the back of a theater, which meant that you could give a more dynamic vocal performance.
This. I remember a highly trained British actor wondering what the deal was with Marilyn Monroe: he didn't think she could act at all. Then he saw the film and the close up of the camera brought out the subtleties. Acting is different for stage and screen and it is taught as such in acting schools.
@@dirtyflotsam And New Hollywood actually studying the past and dumping that unnecessary cr*p to grow the craft was huge. I mean directors to some degree did so before, but moving on to be free of the limitations of theater was big.
@@recoil53 ironically, The Group Theater (started by disciples of Stanislavski’s teachings) revolutionized stage productions and their impact on not just the world of theatre but early television and eventually Hollywood is still being felt to this day. It wasn’t just actors but directors who learned from The System and The Method in their approach to reach an emotional truth in embodying the characters and not just imitating surface emotions. The mid 60s was a time of revolution where reality was being televised in more frank tones and younger people were fed up with the artifice of spectacle films. The “Hays Code” was starting to weaken and there were a number of important directors (who studied under the legends) who were willing to introduce more nuanced characters in their films and it ushered in an era where the new Hollywood leading men were flawed, more relatable and unconventional compared to the good looking, chiseled, leading men who had dominated for most of the golden age. Audiences were receptive to these films and because of its profitability, more movies were produced that were more reflective of the reality of modern society (where before it was mainly based on morality and escapism). The public spoke with their dollars and they embraced this cultural shift.
@@djstarsign I forgot about the impact of general culture of the 60's on film. Some of those flawed characters were about protesting the Vietnam War or the political system without coming out and saying that was what they were doing. Similar to how Japanese directors made a lot of movies with ronin and yakuza many of these flawed characters were critiques of society.
It's funny that you keep using Sunset Boulevard as an example of classical acting because the whole point of that movie is that it's about an aging actress who is stuck in her old ways but the movie predates A Streetcar Named Desire.
There's merit to both realism & expressionism. Some emotions can feel too overwhelming to keep down and we want someone to reflect it for us. I really love Vivienne Leigh's performance in Gone With the Wind (despite how that film has aged thematically) for how big and bombastic she portrayed Scarlet yet it "felt true".
Leigh is a prime example of a wonderful balance between the two. There are moments in GWTW where her emotions are raw, realistic, and effective, and there are times when she's larger than life. It's a wonderful character cemented by a spectacular performer. Whatever your diagnosis of her style might be, there's never a moment when you don't believe her.
"My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?" has got to be the coldest actors version of "bless your heart" I have ever heard. Taking this man's whole life and soul right out of him, damn.
Hoffman was going through a divorce, Olivier was believed to be dying and was heavily medicated. Olivier couldn't even remember his lines. The story is about the two actors modulating each others performances.
There is a lack of content like this nowadays. Glad to know someone is still actually making this kind of videos; questioning, critiquing and analyzing in depth what they know.
17:35 That’s the key differentiator and why Strasburg would be troubled by the complete immersion. Strasburg wanted to build a utility belt that could be deployed, but taking that a step (or two or three) beyond means that you’re beholden to the whims and reactions of the character-who, yes, is traditionally an a**hole-and you’re yielding the professional control that an actor should maintain. It should all be just tools in the belt that you can deploy where appropriate. If they are just tools, you can bring them to bear without making everyone else on set miserable in the face of living with the monster you portray.
Yeah, it's to try to get to what athletes would call "in the zone" - but that's a place that exists only within the game, not the locker room or outside. And I choose that analogy because there was a psychological study of "clutchness" in sports. Those who were the most clutch don't remember all the details of the moment, they just did. Those who aren't remember trying to go through the steps. So yeah, just naturally use the tools you have at the moment you need them. Don't stay in a f*cking wheelchair and make some poor assistant feed you.
Part of it too is that the actor following the System is meant to internalize the role, but not completely lose him/herself in them. Control is still a vital element that you lose by "going method." The System actor *believes* in the truth of the character's fiction using elements of their own psyche, but they have not *completely become* the character. There is a difference there.
Konstantin Stanislavski really had a huge part to play in the move away from theatrical to more 'emotionally authentic' and truthful performance. Reading his book 'An Actor Prepares' within the context of when it was written really shows how Stanislavski was beyond his time. His idea was that true acting is true art and living the part as he put it was the best way to do so.
Brilliant overview and analysis of Stanislavki's influence on 20th century acting. (I know Chekhov was deeply grateful to Stanislavki for his sensitive productions of his plays. Chekhov married the actress who brought THE SEAGULL vividly to life, Olga Knipper). Much gratitude!
Thank you for sharing this as I have been missing acting very much and this has reminded me that acting makes me happy when all the instructors, mentors, training and education deserves to shine again!
14:57 Stuff like this is why I really appreciate Hayden Christensen, he was criminally mocked for his misunderstood but genius performance as Anakin Skywalker: Socially awkward struggles to make eye contact and/or communicate feelings, a slow learner but also a prodigy in certain skills (piloting, mechanics), passionate about certain subjects, and often times failing to control his emotions that come out in dangerous burts--with lastly his overly strong attachment that borders on obsession with one person he feels truly understands him. His character has, what we would call today, high-functioning autism and as someone who has it themselves, Hayden really, REALLY captured all the subtleties of a neurodivergent male before it was really understood. I hate hearing him get bullied for not playing the atypical hero, but when you consider how people on the spectrum are bullied for the same things, it only validates the authenticity of his acting. The guy gets it.
Hence, when Daniel Day-Lewis, Mark Strong, and Shia LaBeouf say, "I don't follow the Method," it's not a stubborn denial but simply the truth. They understand that true Method acting, as developed by Lee Strasberg and based on Stanislavski's system, is a specific technique which is UNRELATED to staying in character constantly. If I had to establish an official term for the acting technique used by Day-Lewis, Strong, and LaBeouf to end the decades-long confusion and misuse/misappropriation of the term "Method", I would suggest "Immersive Acting" or, as per LaBeouf's own words, "Escapism Acting." I think these terms better capture its nature of disappearing into vastly different roles, personalities and sometimes, even physiques. Alternatively, we could honor its original pioneer by calling it "De Niroism Acting." Personally, I categorize acting into 3 major types, 1) Representational/Theatrical Acting of the Golden Age Hollywood, 2) Strasberg's Method/Stanislavski System of the 50s to 70s Hollywood, 3) Immersive Acting/De Niroism Acting of 21st Century. Though I'm inclined to include a fourth type, which is the highly exaggerated Kabuki influenced style of acting that is pioneered by Nicolas Cage. Ethan Hawke said that Cage is the only actor since Brando to bring anything truly new and uncharted to the art of acting, while most actors just conform to the naturalistic based styles of either 2) or 3).
Wouldnt sais Cage pioneered but more like he helped to popularized in the west. Japenese actors have been doing it for years and Cage owes a lot to German actors like Klaus Kinsky
as an aspiring actor, this video was very thought provoking and actually helped de-mistify some of the daunting challenges that, at times, make it feel impossible to achieve success in this industry. thank you for reminding us that acting and filmmaking is an art- not a science!
In the right acting, if - within the other constraints - gets the right response from the audience. I don't see naturalistic acting working so well on a consistent basis in a Wes Anderson movie. It pretty much calls for some expressionistic acting somewhere. Same with Barbie. Context is everything.
I didn't think that I was at all interested in this topic, but I enjoyed your voice so much that I kept watching, and discovered that I'm more interested in the topic than I thought!
I'm 29 and grew up watching old movies with my mom. I never questioned the acting in older movies and just saw it as normal for the type of movie/ story that was being told. It pains me when I see people my age or younger just assume all acting in "old "movies is bad and corny. They don't even bother getting into the story because they're hung up on the acting not being what they're use to which I just don't understand.
I completely agree with you. It's also very ungrateful, because we wouldn't have the blockbuster films of today or newer styles of acting if they didn't have the older ones to build on. It's a 'we're so much better than they were' attitude which I deplore.
I feel like it’s the opposite. I’m 18 and grew up watching a lot of old movies as well and I genuinely feel like they were better. Much more expressive acting and you could feel the characters were immersed in it.
There's a whole new way to be a bad actor that didn't even exist in "old movies." Look at Nicolas Cage or Keanu Reeves or worse yet, Mary Louise Parker with that constant sneer of hers. And Adam Sandler? He's about as funny as rheumatoid arthritis. I find it difficult to watch any of them. There was plenty of subtle acting back in the day too: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Claire Trevor, Van Heflin, John Garfield, Irene Dunne, James Stewart, Montgomery Clift, etc, etc. I'd prefer to settle into a night with one of them than most of those working today... though there are some great ones to be sure.
I love this video so much! As an actress myself I've often thought there had to be difference between going method and using a method. But I've never heard anyone explain it as well as you have. I feel I've learned so much just watching this I can't imagine how long it took you to research this!
Tom cruise is the consummate professional. Gotta admire his dedication to his craft. But, yeah, following his career from the beginning, my friends and I used to joke when describing his movies by calling them: "Top Pool Shark," "Top Brother," "Top Bartender," "Top Race Car Driver," "Top Irishman," "Top Vampire," "Top" Etcetera.
Seriously! lol It seems like it's a combination of too much mumbling of lines and slurring of speech in modern stuff, plus the audio mixing is off somehow. Also, a lot of modern movies and shows look way too dark. The lighting is abysmal in a lot of newer movies like the filmmakers don't want you to see anything.
yes.....i hate it when the actors mumble. AND you cannot tell me that in real life there are not over the top extroverted people, i see them all the time
Old school acting is absolutely top notch. There's a lot to love about old Hollywood movies, and honestly, the acting is so captivating that it makes that time period really stand out. So many acting performances these days are incredibly boring and basic. I want drama, I want theater and I want good story telling.
Exactly how I feel too. I’m not entertained at all by downplayed and toned down performances. I love theatrics and intense portrayals, like another world/universe with captivating characters and scenes that are only possible in movies.
@@asantesamuel13 It depends for me. I feel like too much theatrics on a TV show/film feels like soap opera acting and can come across really cringey. It makes me think of an SNL skit. I like when they do that for SNL skits because I know it's not meant to be taken seriously. I can't take that kind of acting seriously and I'm not entertained by it.
@@exploringcolorado720 I completely agree and I don't say that to troll. I'm sure it's different if you grew up during the time, but I get the feeling a lot of people are sort of telling themselves they like things which in many ways are inferior just because it's considered classic or associated with intelligence, "good taste", etc.
This is pretty inspirational. As a musician, I'm imagining how it applies to songs and performance, but also, as a filmmaker who works with different cultures it helps me recognizing that some of the people I work with may prefer representational acting over presentational...sometimes life is hard enough as is to have it shown back with complete realism.
Personally, I prefer Classic Hollywood Films, partly due to the fact that I grew up with them since my infancy, but also because of the fact that you recognize that it is outside the realm of realism, hence the phrase “Only in the movies”.
Same here and for similar reasons. Because I grew up in the era of the 1980s which had limitations on what was being aired, I was almost forced to watch the older classic films from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s on TV because that's what was playing most of the time. Back then, even when 80s movies came out in the movie theaters, you still had to wait like a year before they came to the pay channels like HBO and Cinemax. The only other option to see them earlier was to rent the VHS tapes at Blockbuster. I shouldn't even say "forced" because I ended up really liking a lot of films from the 40s and 50s, especially in the film noir genre. The Maltese Falcon is in my top 10 films all time and I still consider that to be the best film noir movie ever and it's the one that basically jumpstarted the genre. Also, Sunset Boulevard is in my top 10 all time as I consider that to be the best film about Hollywood ever.
Agnes Moorehead (1900-1974) here commenting on the "Method" school of acting, "The Method school thinks the emotion is the art. It isn't. All emotion isn't sublime. The theater isn't reality. If you want reality, go to the morgue. The theater is human behavior that is effective and interesting."
What a fascinating and informative video. 👏 From Ancient Greek theatre, through Noh, down to our modern forms and methods, we should appreciate them all.
As an amateur voice actor myself this is interesting to me because most of the time voice actors are in isolation with their performances. In a way it's more pure form of acting. You have to really push imagination, to mentally put yourself somewhere, often no reacting to others. TV shows will play back other actors recordings if they've been done before, but many projects are done remotely, self directed, just given scripts and let go to send back at a moments convenience. It's a rare thing for all the actors in a scene to record together. Tho if you look at how they record Anime in Japan they do perform with each other as a norm.
There was a scene I had once for a dub where the director wanted a certain energy that he wasn't getting from me and my scene partner so had us together in a call. We were a couple in the peak of a fight and by the end of the call we played out the entire scene without pausing at all. It was a fantastic experience, my first real taste of being able to play off the energy of a partner. The project is a fandub for Coffee Talk btw. I played Baileys.
Ohh that's why the Naruto anime scene where Pain destroys Konoha feels so much different in English and Japanese dub English dub feels like " typical that's a badass cold blooded villain " Japanese dub feels like " I can finally release the pain and anger because this village caused me too much pain "
@@ThomasFlight For real man, film criticism and analysis on TH-cam has taken a real downturn these last few years. Most of it is superficial, amateurish and borderline bigoted. But you speak from real experience and talk about craft in a way few people really do anymore. You've taught me a lot.
You touched on this a bit, but I'd love to see a deeper essay on the technical side of this conversation - the changes in cameras, sound, lights, etc. The miniaturization of equipment must have felt freeing to the artists in the 60s and 70s.
Not an actor here but like many I love Cinema and sometimes wonder why I can get so involved in a performance that it brings me to tears or chills. Thank you for the in depth analysis.
Some clarifications regarding Adler: 1) Stella Adler was most certainly NOT a student of Strasberg’s. In fact, Adler and Strasberg were students together at The American Laboratory Theatre, where Adler, Strasberg, and Harold Clurman (who would later marry Stella) studied the Stanislavski System for the first time with the Russian teachers (Boleskavski and Ouspenskaya) who remained after the MAT (Moscow Art Theatre) toured America. Stella Adler was an original founding member of The Group Theatre, together with Clurman and Strasberg. One thing that could have helped this discussion was how the actors, directors, and teachers who came out of The Group Theatre forever changed theatre, television, and film, particularly in America… the influence most don’t even recognize today. 2) Adler was born into an acting dynasty. The history of theatre in America actually starts with the Yiddish Theatre in New York first. Stella Adler’s acting family, headed by her father Jacob Adler and mother Sara Adler, were considered acting royalty. Stanislavski even knew of her father Jacob Adler’s famous performances and sought him out to discuss certain roles. So… Stella didn’t exactly have a normal childhood and had learned acting from her entire family and other Yiddish companies in New York - starting at 4 years old! By the time she joined The Group, Stella was already a trained and seasoned actress, with a couple of decades and hundreds of performances under her belt. 3) To say that Adler was all about the physical or external dealings of acting is an oversimplification and an overstatement. Adler taught in a very balanced and thorough way, unlike Strasberg. In fact, Adler’s most famous classes were her script interpretation classes in the 70s and 80s… they were world-famous, and packed with students, famous and not. Movie stars and working actors repeatedly came back to those classes with new students because no one, not even Stanslavski taught how to break down a script. Stella was quite unique in this regard. The fact that we even talk about characterization and script analysis today as we do is largely due to Stella’s classes. Strasberg and other teachers glossed over it. Adler held the playwright and their ideas up and gave it supreme importance. Our role as actors is to fulfill the big ideas of the text. This is why Adler was well-respected amongst all the great American playwrights of the time and had strong bonds with them: Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, etc. But the point is this: Adler taught everything. Much of script interpretation deals with finding psychology and themes (internals) and then making it doable. But Adler was intensely focused on creating a full character with immense realism and depth, internally and externally. 4) When Adler says not to read Stanislavski’s book, it is for a very good reason. Most of America had read the badly translated books of Stanislavki’s. It actually is very esoteric and is not very practical at all! Elizabeth Hapgood, the original translator of Stanislavski, cut out A LOT from the original books. She was not an actress and took a lot of literary liberties. What resulted was that the American English translation uses odd vocabulary and ideas that are wholly misinterpreted and twisted from Stanislavski’s writings… and are quite different from the original Russian and even the German translations. What the English speaking world received was a mess of a first book. Stanislavksi, up until his death, was still refining acting and teaching. He was quite against a fixed vocabulary and a “how-to” guide. To know more about this, seek out the work by Sharon M. Carnicke, an actress and teacher who speaks fluent Russian and has dedicated her life to setting the record straight, written a number of books and has taught on the topic, including Stanislavski’s fullest, most up-to-date teachings before his death. 5) Stella Adler was the only American teacher of that time to study directly with Stanislavski. They had spent time together in Paris, and Stella trained with him, clarifying everything that was being taught in America. At the time, his first, butchered translation of An Actor Prepares was not even published yet. Adler recorded her sessions with Stanslavski, together with a secretary and Harold Clurman. When they returned to America, The Group Theatre was riveted and relieved! So much was clarified. But Strasberg had a meltdown and had a famous falling out with Stella. Thereafter, Stella taught students at The Group Theatre the clearest, direct teachings from Stanislavski himself, and other students followed Strasberg. It was also then that Strasberg exclaimed, “I don’t teach the Stanislavksi System! I teach the Strasberg Method.” From there on, acting was infected with this “method” madness. At any rate… Stella’s work with Stanislavski was a revelation for the other actors. Most thanked Stella and went on to formulate their own unique systems for teaching and directing using Stella’s notes and recordings and charts, including Bobby Lewis, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, etc. 6) Finally, Adler’s own books were published after her death and assembled by journalists and editors. They have some powerful insights and principles that can inspire an artist indefinitely. But, as interesting as they are, they don’t represent the depth and scope of Adler’s in real, in-class teachings. As someone who was taught by Adler and continued studying with many of her protégés after her death, I can say that what the public thinks they know of Adler through her books. At best, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. At worst, people create all sorts of misunderstandings. I truly tried resisting commenting on this video essay, but I just couldn't sleep knowing that some information keeps keeping overlooked or misrepresented, once again in this method culture mythology. There is an inherent and perpetual risk in having people who are not fully trained, seasoned (decades) give all sorts of opinions about acting. It just gets further muddied and twisted. People on the inside for years and have trained with a number of these teachers know a different story. Reading some books on the history of theatre and cinema doesn’t even get close to what real crafts people know. There are more points of inaccuracies not relating to Stella Adler in this video essay, but it would take forever to pick them out one by one. It’s a good effort, but it’s still apparent that this is spoken not from the perspective of an actor, thoroughly trained, but from one who has read a few (particular) books on the topic. The art of acting, like other artforms - music, painting, writing - is far deeper and nuanced than this. I suppose I could sum up my stance by quoting the great poet Dame Edith Sitwell: “I have devoted my whole life to writing poetry… and I’m not going to be taught by people who don’t know anything about it… I mean, I don’t teach plumbers how to plumb.”
Between the pretentious tone of the comment and the constant, over the top glazing of Adler, I've never been more repelled by a comment that, deep down, seems well informed and making some good points. Oof. I guess youtube comments are also an art.
@@fpedrosa2076 If my comment is the one has made you feel more repelled than any other comment… honey, you got a big storm comin’. I simply laid the facts out on the table as it relates to Adler and the craft in detail. If saying something as forcefully and clearly to address the fallacies and superficial analysis in the video is pretentious, so be it. I’m not out here looking to win awards for being polite. And if I were you, I wouldn’t be so offended by a TH-cam comment. Oof. 😅
Appreciate you making this video. De Niro actually studied with both Adler and Strasberg as did many other actors of that time period. And Brando credited Eliza Kazans directing for helping him learning acting as well as studying with Adler. Kazan as a director was actually pretty manipulative often taking from actors real lives to help invigorate a truthful performance. He was a fan of affective memory. Kazan himself was taught by Strasberg, so Strasbergs not entirely wrong when he calls Brando a student of the method, although he never directly taught Brando personally.
I want to share my favorite recent quote about acting, from Matt Zoller Seitz (who I'm sure you know), talking about Big Acting - deliberately "Out There" performances, and in this case, specifically about Nicolas Cage in "Longlegs" - "[Big Acting is risky...] When it doesn't work, it's like releasing a ferret in a beauty salon. But when it works, it's like releasing a ferret in a beauty salon."
What you mention at the end about how representational acting is used today is super interesting. I think that David Lynch, who I somehow always come back to when watching your videos, uses this brilliantly in his work to create a sense of unease and dissonance exactly because we are no longer use to seeing this kind of acting and because it represents a bygone era that evokes many of the themes he is working with. And it can be used within a story as a way to represent the mental state of a character, such as Naomi Watts in much of Mullholland Drive, who doesn't have access to her own emotions because she is living out a fantasy.
The lesser known knowledge about method acting is that there is a scale to method acting, and the extreme versions of method acting are what tends to be talked about and criticized. However, many actors use method acting without reaching the extremes, and it works fine. Method is just finding ways to get into the mind of the character, and it can be nice to discover things about the character if playing them off of the set or out of the rehearsal room / script.
This is the best video on this subject I've seen. I know the "Marathon Man" story is well known but I don't think I've seen it mentioned in another YT video. This is such a great analysis of the philosophy behind not just acting, but storytelling as a whole.
Wow what a great video! I learned so much about acting. It all makes perfect sense now. In the early days before motion pictures when live stage plays in theaters were the standard of entertainment, larger than life performance was necessary. Being an actor in a play meant literally to act or pretend. The key word being pretend. The goal was not to be realistic. Plays were works of fiction, stories in which characters existed and behaved unlike people in real life. Audiences did not want to see a recreation of real life. They wanted to see something bigger and grander. This is what is known as theatrical acting. As an audience member in the live stage play era you knew the people on stage were acting due to their over-the-top performances. Nowadays, the audience is not supposed to be able to tell the cast in a movie are acting. In other words, actors don't act anymore. The goal of achieving realistic performance means the audience is not seeing an act or pretend emotion. They are seeing the cast experience real emotions on screen. The stories in modern films are fiction but the cast performances are real. The question now becomes do actors/actresses exist anymore? Why spend the money going to acting school when pretending emotion is no longer the objective? Actor/actress are old words that no longer apply in my opinion. If you cry in a scene, you are not acting. You are actually crying. Pretending to cry is acting. William Shanter is often made fun of and accused of overacting however his style of performance was perfect for the external type of acting used in the early days of Hollywood. With that said, Shatner never learned how to make the switch from theatrical acting to giving a performance grounded in reality.
Acting Styles are so interesting. When creating a character you are studying the history of them in the story. Then you let go, trusting that the character history is still there. The big thing is the ability for an actor to listen to their scene partner. If an actor is actually listening and reacting truthfully based on what the other actor gives, you can see the truth unfolding. I think about James Dean in East of Eden. The scene where he goes to his father and cry’s after the actor rejects his money. Raymond Massy hated James Dean for choosing to cry instead of being angry which I believe is what the screenplay called for. When James Dean did the opposite, he made Raymond’s character look even more prideful and an asshole because in the truth of that moment, Raymond couldn’t help but feel like James was hijacking the scene. It’s what makes it sooo great!
I always think about how "A Streetcar Named Desire" was like the turning point for acting in a good way, Vivien Leigh classical style vs Marlon Brando more realistic approach works wonders for that film. (lmao, maybe I should post my comments after the video)
As an actor, I've had quite a few peers who employ grasping onto past experience for emotional reaction on stage. While it can result in incredible moments in a performance, these are also usually the most emotionally unstable people I've known. Also, the auto caption translated "relaxation techniques" into "relax Asian techniques" haha.
It's also funny how the marathon man story both changes and doesn't. The version I've heard over the years is that Dustin Hoffman was running around to make himself as exhausted as the character would be before Olivier's response.
Another great video. I will add to this that much of the change has to do with the change in society. We live in a society these days that is much more relaxed. People go to work in whatever they feel like, whereas in 1930 morning train services into global cities were filled with people wearing basically the same unofficial 'uniforms' - suit, overcoat, hat and paper. Likewise, women were mostly at home, or in secretarial/support roles. This bled into how people operated and behaved. Manners mattered and the scope for 'free speech' was significantly reduced - particularly in public settings. Therefore, although there was a lot of 'dramatic' acting, there was also a lot that happened on screen that reflected the mores and norms of the world in general. Life in the early era of film was about fitting in, keeping up appearances and to some degree 'performing' as expected. In short, while your points are valid and interesting, there is also the simple fact that the medium is reflecting society.
@@LewisBavin Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter really don't strike me as that style of acting at all. Disney Villains I definitely see, and I suppose you could make an argument for some specific Harry Potter characters, but otherwise I really just don't see it. What specifically makes you say that Lord of the Rings is "representational style" acting?
@@LewisBavin I'm guessing you're probably being sarcastic? If so, I disagree. I think their acting seems pretty grounded in realism. Is there some level of theatricality in the way they interact with each other? Yeah. But I read that largely as the etiquette and customs of their world. People don't always act "realistic" in real life when they're being formal. But the emotions and general character behavior/mannerisms to me all feel firmly rooted in realism.
A. Those clips (The Maltese Falcon, Phantom Thread) are not so different. B. Look at period reviews: emotional authenticity WAS an expectation. '"It Happened One Night" is a good piece of fiction, which, with all its feverish stunts, is blessed with bright dialogue and a good quota of relatively RESTRAINED scenes.' (NY Times 1934). "The author would have been nowhere without the DEFT direction of Frank Capra and the SPIRITED and GOOD-HUMORED ACTING of the stars and practically most of their support." VARIETY C. Cagney is not a good example of type-casting, since he also did musicals and rom-coms. D. Bogart is quite different in THE MALTESE FALCON and THE BIG SLEEP. The similarities are due to the studio and the genre. It's nonsense to talk about him communicating hidden emotion in roles that don't call for it--except towards the end of THE BIG SLEEP, where the script calls for it, and he acquits himself quite well. The latter was poorly reviewed but did excellent box office: time has shown the critics were wrong and the audiences right. E. Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise when he does star parts. Moments in MAGNOLIA are star moments, and others more 'realistic.' F. You put Italian Neorealism out of order. This movement changed film acting in America. And since some of the actors who worked for Italian directors were American and NOT students of the Method, e.g., Broderick Crawford and Richard Basehart, you can't simply associate realism in acting with the Method. G. DeNiro STUDIED The Method in New York. Daniel Day Lewis did not STUDY the Method: he simply employed elements of it. H. Relatedly, PLEASE don't use "Method" to refer to any and all attempts for the actor to get real experiences similar to that of the character. This shows a total lack of understanding of what Stanislavsky did, wrote about, and taught. I. A Wikipedia article is not a psychological study. And a Wikipedia article with only two sources is not a good source. And generalizing about Method acting (which you don't even successfully define) is shoddy at best. J. Stanislavsky wrote three books on acting. If you want to know what the Stanislavsky Method was, you can read three books. That's not a lot to ask. And there are many other books detailing how the Method was adopted (and shunned) in the U.S. I'm not talking about Butler's book: I'm talking about books going back decades which it doesn't seem like you've bothered to look at. K. Garfield is different in FOUR DAUGHTERS because the CHARACTER is different. It cannot simply be put down to acting technique. Simply put: he's too good an actor to do what everyone else is doing when the character is from a different universe. L. Other scholars use "presentational" and "representational" exactly the opposite way Hagen does. M. Exercises are not acting. Strasberg developed those exercises for reasons. Once you can do what you need to do, the exercise is no longer needed. N. Stanislavski called his method "notes for moments of difficulty." The idea is NOT that you use a technique ALL THE TIME--say, in order to recall an emotion; rather, you might use that technique when the emotion does not come naturally from all the other work you and the actors and director have done to make the events of what's being acted specific and real. O. You're talking about what Stanislavski called the "method of physical actions," but I'm not sure if you're aware of that. That's from his third book.
I've read all the books mentioned and have a BFA in drama. You accomplished your task here brilliantly and economically. This video will benefit anyone interested in the subject, whether an expert or a curious fan.
Just watched this amazing video in one go. Thank you Thomas. There are many people who enjoy presentational acting more than the representational and one of them is my dear mom. When I was spending time at home during the pandemic, I realized that the way she approaches to tv series or any kind of movie is very simple: She's already tired of housework and she just wants to watch something she wouldn't put a lot a lot of effort to understand. Presentation acting in general is easier to follow, it's filled with stereotypes that you'd recognize and say something like "Aha, this is the funny guy in the group and this one is the natural leader.". You don't need to carefully examine the characters and their "realistic" feelings like dilemmas, shame, guilt etc. I don't take it lightly, it's just the way it is. I believe the main reason behind the shift towards the representational acting is the socioeconomic changes in people's lives during the 20th century. Shorter working hours, proliferation of studying a college (hence more free time tbh), desk jobs and finally the rise of the television. We started to consume more content in the video form and got more critical at it. I'm a product of this and I don't treat movies like my mom. The "entertainment" is just a secondary goal for me at this point. I want to feel what the character feels. I want to feel the wind in my face. It's a damn serious business and it takes representational acting to satisfy me. Let me finish with this: One of my friends got married and have two kids now. Therefore he's living a more tiring life and has way more responsibilities than I do. I recently visited him at his house and saw him chuckling at "Police Academy" on tv. (It's still televised in Turkey time to time) This guy's favorite director during the college was Jean-Luc Godard.
One of the reasons I love A Streetcar Named Desire was the duality of Vivien's and Marlo's styles. Viv, the classically trained actress, was old and past her prime. Marlon, the method actor, was young with his best days still ahead. The meta commentary is fascinating.
Perhaps the character of Blanche was old and past her prime but Vivien herself was anything but! There are moments in the film where her acting surpasses anything else ever captured on celluloid. I would say that despite her classical training, she developed her own style that could very well be understood as Method at times, particularly in this film as she herself declared the role tipped her into madness in real life.
Bad example, as Vivien Leigh was one of the few actors of her age who would really instill drama and naturality in her characters. Henry Fonda would be another.
I´m just watching this right now... what a audiovisual pleasure, man. (A video about the wonderful cinematography and use of the low quadrant framing of Mr. Robot would be fire, by the way!).
I think “method acting” has a lot of value in the right context. Experiencing a sport or occupation that is central to a character or story, having crew and cast use your character name/time *while filming* or other similar and reasonable techniques to enable authenticity or maintain the world and headspace you’re having to live in makes a lot of sense. However, you should never need to cause harm to yourself or others in order to do this.
Acting is so emotionally draining. It's a wonder how everyone keeps going in this profession. After going to college for Theater, I couldn't take how much emotion I had to put into it. It often left me depressed.
I had trouble describing the "theatrical" acting for a while, but the explanation was right there in the word the whole time and I was overthinking it: it's literally just stage play acting 💀reminds me of the time late in my life where I finally realized "Oh Jeez" means "Oh Jesus"
I haven't watched a long video like that for a long time until now. You did a really good job keeping my attention and i admire all the work you put into this!
@45:58 the Ferris Wheel scene in The Third Man [1949] is my favorite example of "old school" theatrical acting (Cotten) and what would become the more "modern" naturalistic acting (Welles) occurring in the same exact scene.
Honestly, Isaac butler’s book on the method and the history of Stanislavski’s influence on modern acting is a treasure. There’s so much history that was primarily focused on stage acting but as movies became talkies, a lot of Stanislavski’s disciples revolutionized screen acting. Butler’s writing is impeccable and he has such a powerful way of capturing the details of the evolution of the System into its fractured variants.
When I was a child I had no visible emotions. I never laughed, never cried, nor smiled, and many found me creepy for that reason. The truth is that I didn't know how to express emotions. It took me years of studying those around me, imitating their expressions and how their vocal tones differed when they felt different emotions, to myself in the mirror until I finally managed to seem "normal". Now people around me keep telling me how good I am at acting, and it has gone to the point that people believe the lies I've told and the roles I've played so wholly that they don't believe me when I actually tell the truth. I can vividly show any emotion at any time, smile sweetly as if I'm happy to see you, even if I'm in the depths of despair or so full of rage that I'm on the cusp of breaking your neck. I no longer know completely what the real me is, and the fact that people around rejects the truth, rather believing the lies, when I tell it, frustrates me to no end, and I don't know what to do...
have you spoken with a professional? that might really help you discover the things you want to about yourself and help make connections that don’t feel falsd
@@alexx5064 I've known several people who were about to finish their masters in psychology, and none of them could get a reading on me (some of them got severely depressed and stressed out once I told them the deep stuff), but I've yet to speak to an actual professional. Thanks for the advice though.
@@thorsteinnorman7133 yeah bro, I meant it sincerely fr- living inside a mind/head that isn’t comfortable and the feelings of dissociation really sucks and I hope you find the mental peace you deserve
Modern movies and acting generally suck. These days movies over rely on CGI. To the point it becomes annoying. Older movies have far better writing and the acting is more entertaining.
@@SquareNoggin It really is both. Many modern actors (whichever country they are from or whatever language they use) have problems with diction and enunciation, as well as expressing non verbal/body language.
Exactly! lol I can barely even watch modern stuff anymore because how bad the writing, and by extension, the acting is. Writing is more important than acting because really good/great writing can elevate the performances of mediocre actors, but bad writing can actually make good actors come across as amateurs. If I'm saying to myself that "real people don't talk like this" or if the plot itself is nonsensical, I'm pretty much taken out of the story immediately. I've noticed in the last decade or so that the dialogue in a lot of movies and shows is eerily similar in a bad way. Being a modern movie/show doesn't equate to it being realistic or believable.
Great bit of history on the evolution of acting. Seems like the idea of method acting is personal not each performer who might use it. Thanks for another engaging video.
This is brilliant. I always wondered how we got from the theatrical acting to more contemporary, naturalistic acting. I understand what thomasFlight is saying although I have no background in the history of acting.
Check out some additional notes, a full bibliography, and further reading for this video: thomasflight.substack.com/p/why-does-acting-feel-so-different
Get your free trial of MUBI: mubi.com/thomasflight
@@ThomasFlight I'm a big fan of yours, this means a lot, thank you for your good work.
You inspire me. MR FLIGHT
Bro the thumbnail literally covers the video lol no need to watch it now just came here to say
Hi Thomas. Consider looking into the profound impact of Robert Altman after 1970. His experimental approach included no rehearsal, improvisation, documentary style filming and non-actors. What we learned through his experimentation is now taken for granted in how actors and directors work today. The most obvious contribution being his use of unscripted dialogue and "mistakes" that capture the spirit of the moment in a given scene.
Hate to ride on this comment but I wanted to make a big point and hope you see it. 47:15 I would argue that even today, we still want acting & not completely natural. Jury Duty with James Marsden is actually acting that is trying to be truly natural.
You can’t watch a movie today and think that looks completely natural. It’s pretending to be natural like how some fashion for women includes makeup that looks “natural” but clearly doesn’t look fully natural.
For anyone saying it's bad acting because it was sometimes over the top I say this. First of all some of the performances were not good that's right. But every decade has really good acting. Second and most importantly: Good acting isn't necessarily natural. Ask yourself this: Is there an audiobook you enjoyed because of the voice acting? Did you notice that the way voice actors speak is anything but natural? Yet we see them as great performances? It's because they follow a certain melody certain rules of emphasizing words generating patterns of speaking that we universally recognize as good acting. The mere fact that good hammy acting and bad hammy acting exist should tell us something. We instinctively recognize when someone is just bad and inconsistent trying to hide his lack of acting skills with big gestures and over the top enunciation or if he has absolute command over how he wants to sound. People like Cary Grant or even better concerning hammy/campy: TIM CURRY. Nobody can deny he can ham it up like no one else and make it work.
They're acting STYLES, which I think is really cool. I love old and new films, I love foreign films with different acting conventions... as long as the acting matches the style of the film and is part of telling a good story, I AM IN.
this is why I love South Korean cinema. There's something arresting about performances in classics like Oldboy and more modern films like Parasite, where there is a layer of surreality where characters aren't super realistic. Oldboy eating the octopus, or the level of manipulation by the family in Parasite isn't meant to be realistic. Instead the actors take you on a journey where the setting seems real, but characters don't act "normal".
Also, this is why I love Lanthimos' films because he also has the actor's acting strange, surreal and inhuman, almost robotic, so instead of being confused by the surreal images of duck races in the Favourite, or the whole universe in the Lobster, we don't question it because we're already unfamiliar to the world. When everything is off kilter, we don't question when things break reality because there is no reality. We are existing in a foreign world that doesn't follow the rules so nothing can really take us out of the immersion.
the only correct opinion
Agreed. And you still see a few theatrical conventions even now. For example, if a character is supposed to be unhappy, but in-universe is supposed to be pretending to be happy to those around them, they always do a terrible job at pretending. To do otherwise is too confusing for the audience.
It's clear the industry (mainly Hollywood and London) only facilitates this one style of acting now though. The British stage acting of the 50s and 60's and the rise of hyperrealism as opposed to the character acting and personality of vaudeville and silent pictures.
Yeah people will automatically think one style is better than another when it's not. They're just different.
For instance, it's why many people say the acting in the Star Wars prequels or Nicholas Cage is bad... when it's really that it's just a different, older style of acting dropped in the middle in a bunch of modern styles in pretty much all other films.
I think part of the reason that the new approach to acting has become the standard is the shift from stage to film. Theatrical acting often looks overwrought with the closeness of a camera. Presentational acting can get lost on a stage, but is perfect for the a camera.
I made the exact same point in my own comment. I think the reason so much early screen acting seems overly "theatrical" is because most of these actors were trained in the theater. Also, film was a super young art form. Like all young art forms, the unique properties of the art form were not fully understood. They weren't internalized by the actors or the directors. And so they continued to act with broad gestures and precise enunciation the way they would if they were trying to communicate to a massive theater crowd. It was only later that we understood how film's ability to present close-ups and clear dialogue even at a whisper could transform acting into something much more naturalistic.
I think this is true but what's fascinating to me is that the movement towards presentational acting starting in theater, and representational acting still is a valuable part of film acting to this day. So while they're was certainly a shift, and the relative closeness of the character certainly played a role, there's definitely some other forces driving each approach.
@@ThomasFlight I think it's actually not that suprising that this movement started in theater, and moved from there to film. In theater, a group of actors spend 6-8 intensive weeks together in rehearsal, and a large part of that time is spent on discussing the text, the characters and the world they are creating on stage. There is room for experimentation, especially in the first few weeks, and there is a continuity in the process that you don't get on film set, where the work is much more fragmented, and time is limited and not much room for experimentation or theorizing. Besides, this idea of theatrical acting and film acting being somehow opposites is an old cliche which isn't true anymore. Acting in film and theater are based on the same principles, it's just the medium is different, and what we call "theatrical acting" on film is most often actors that haven't adjusted to a different medium (or lacking guidance from the director)
I remember reading an interview with an actor transitioning from theatre to film. The first advice the film director gave him was: Remember - the camera can read your mind
Same goes for makeup. You have to exaggerate more with stage makeup than film.
You should do a video on actors who pretty much just play themselves, like Ryan Reynolds, and Adam Sandler. I think it would be interesting to see your take on how actors playing themselves affects their performances both negatively and positively.
Robert Downey Jr. to some extent, too. You really can't tell where Tony Stark ends and Robert Downey Jr. begins.
Mark Wahlberg seems to have this reputation.
The Rock is this especially, compared to Cena and Bautista who’ve been able to be good at their own character roles
Keanu Reeves bro.
Tom Cruise. All just flavors of himself. Most big actors are this way really. Very few change things up drastically every role. They are just trying to be natural and real.
Actor here! This was a great, well researched video. One thing I'd love to add is the idea of the "Actor's Toolbox". These days when you study acting, you learn about all of the various techniques and philosophies that you talked about, and we add all of that information into what we call the Actor's Toolbox. What this means is we have a broad base of knowledge that we can pull from depending on the needs of a specific character or production, because every role and collaboration requires something different.
For anyone saying it's bad acting because it was sometimes over the top I say this. First of all some of the performances were not good that's right. But every decade has really good acting. Second and most importantly: Good acting isn't necessarily natural. Ask yourself this: Is there an audiobook you enjoyed because of the voice acting? Did you notice that the way voice actors speak is anything but natural? Yet we see them as great performances? It's because they follow a certain melody certain rules of emphasizing words generating patterns of speaking that we universally recognize as good acting. The mere fact that good hammy acting and bad hammy acting exist should tell us something. We instinctively recognize when someone is just bad and inconsistent trying to hide his lack of acting skills with big gestures and over the top enunciation or if he has absolute command over how he wants to sound. People like Cary Grant or even better concerning hammy/campy: TIM CURRY. Nobody can deny he can ham it up like no one else and make it work.
@@EbonyPope Funny you should mention audiobooks, because some of my favorites actually have good acting, not the hammy unnatural "voice based" acting I think you're referring to. So I don't think I actually agree that good acting can be unnatural. I just suppose that a lot of people don't mind bad acting.
@@jed1nat Well neither audiobooks nor hammy acting are natural. Some audiobooks might be read a more natural than the way someone like Tim Curry would play it but they aren't truly natural. Nobody speaks like in an audiobook. My point was that for example voice acting in audiobooks do follow certain rules. Certain melodies how you pronounce a word or how a sentence sounds when you are enraged. It's the quality of how controlled it sounds that we perceive as good or bad acting. A bad actor is someone who is very unsure of his lines. One part is surely the exaggerated/artifical way of how he plays it but it's combined with a lack of control and self confidence. We all have seen bad actors. All I wanted to point out you can make other styles work as long as you are perceived as having full command of your facial expressions and the way you enunciate your words. The best example would be Tim Curry which I always reference. His roles of the butler in Clue or as Pennywise in IT are so iconic because of his overacting and hammy delivery. There absolutely are roles that command such a delivery because such histrionic people exist that are over the top. That have weird mannerisms. And that is why these roles are still memorable and considered well acted roles. Something really over the top can be really good in the hands of the right actor. I do not agree that it's just people unable to discern bad acting. In some cases it's so bad it's good but that is another category (Troll 2 comes to mind). We still wouldn't say it's an example of bad acting but we do that with Timy Curry's Pennywise. I think it's a good example of what good hammy acting means. That's why I chose it.
Actor here. never heard of this shit.
@@NostalgiNorden It's a common expression in all trades and skills that has to solve problems. It's really not that deep.
I'm a graduate of the Ned Beatty school of acting. "Read the script, do what it says." Saved me years and thousands on drama school.
I'm with you on this!
I've been at it for 30 years and it's very rare for me to ever question a direction. I do what he says. Film is a director's medium and that is what an actor must fulfill.
@@andyanderson3628 The words of a terrible actor.
@@NostalgiNorden Ah yes, Ned Beatty, an actor so terrible he was nominated for an Oscar for a role that took up 6 minutes of screentime.
to each their own
I mean, Gloria Swanson’s acting in Sunset Blvd was theatrical even for 1950. Her performance was more reflective of the silent era and early talkies. That’s one of the main points of her performance.
Yeah exactly thought it was a weird example because it's part of her character.
That's true for Blanche in Streetcar too. The theatricality is part of the character.
I can't decide if using Norma Desmond as the thumbnail is kinda missing the point of the essay or brilliantly hitting it...
*Joe Gillis:* You're Norma Desmond! You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
*Norma Desmond:* I _am_ big. It's the _pictures_ that got small.
@@JarrettOriginal Absolutely hitting it imo. Has there ever been a character in film who better represents--or an actress more suitably cast to embody--the fact of older "theatrical" expectations evolving out of existence? Already even in 1950, Billy Wilder knew that if Swanson embodied her classical style it would feel dated to the audiences. Why? Precisely because expectations had already changed. And this was a year prior to A Streetcar Named Desire, underscoring what @ThomasFlight points out here, that it really was an evolution in film-making, not simply a switch flipped by Brando in 1951.
Ian McKellan's issue that caused him to break down was less about the green screen and more about the fact that there were no other actors on set with him. He was acting by himself, in a green room, with blue Xs taped to sticks that were supposed to be dwarves around him. He had nothing to respond to except Peter Jackson woodenly reading the others' lines to him.
Sounds like a lot of the auditions that actors have to do.
@@Avery_4272 While true the main difference is that it isn't an audition. Im surprised by OP's comment bc that just seems like such an odd decision for Peter Jackson to do, especially since he would know better.
@@samiai8905 Jackson was essentially extorted into doing the Hobbit movies on very short notice and did not have the planning and preparation time he would have wanted. Creating every prop multiple times (so you have it on different scales) and making special sets and props for forced perspective (like the funky wagon that let Elijah Wood be on the 'same bench' as McKellan but appear smaller because he was further away) takes a lot more time and effort than plunking an actor in front of a green screen. I don't blame McKellan for having trouble and getting upset, but Jackson was making do as best he could with really crap circumstances.
@@soniciris It's not just that, but even then he had originally only planned for two movies and at the last minute was forced into extending it to three. Every aspect of the Hobbit production was extremely overstretched and pretty much nobody was having a good time, especially by the end. Even on-set photos of Jackson show him looking basically dead.
I think Ewan McGregor also express some frustration with the extensive use of green screens when he was acting in the Star Wars prequels, and found it quite challenging. It was difficult to visualize the environment and react to elements that weren’t physically present.
This is why Nicholas Cage seems so out of place. He uses an older, theatrical style of acting, which a lot of non US countries still use, and it really stands out/clashes with the rest of Hollywoods acting.
"SWITCH TO KRYPTONIIIIIIIIIITE!!!!"
Nic Cage's performance was largely influenced by Klaus Kinski. Kinski walked so Cage would run 😂
My favorite Cage performances are Bringing Out the Dead and Weatherman, neither of which feels out of place for the characters.
Shout out to Adaptation as well.
@@jangdi. Are you kidding? Kinski was a demonic madman and Cage would be the first to say so; that dude was RUNNING well before Cage came on the scene. They're both Expressionist actors, in a rich tradition of over-the-top *artificiality* that is sometimes used in contrast to naturalistic acting around them to heighten the sense of the bizarre. But what Cage is doing isn't "out of place"-- it's just something that's more the province of character / supporting actors. When the Expressionist performance shifts to the main character-- think Cagney in White Heat, or Pacino in Scarface-- the whole movie feels wild, crazy, off-balance.
@@jangdi. Cage is not running hes jumping all over the place!
My acting prof in college taught us something similar to 'The System.' He called it "GOTE" - Goal, Obstacles, Tactics, Expectation. This made so much more sense to me than Method Acting, or actually becoming the character. It helps you come up with the emotion or tactics you would convey for the context of the scene and character, but it keeps your self separate from the character, especially if this is a character that would do things you would personally never do, and you don't have to immerse your personal self into something/someone else.
As an actor myself (which I find most joy reading Stanislavsky’s and Hagen’s works), I love that you took the time to demystify the esoteric and conflicting aspects about how acting is perceived, taught, and understood. It can be so dense and exhausting for a multitude of reasons - but especially due to the mixing of the same terminology that can have entirely different interpretations, understandings, and overall application. Thank you for this video Thomas.
During the 70's when realism started taking over all the old directors, executives and producers all said it was a horrible idea. That because people delt with real life every day they'd never spend money on a ticket to be entertained by it.
Ever since then, with a few exceptions, melodrama has been looked at as a joke by the average moviegoer and most don't even realize that "over acting" style can still be deliberate. In fact I can recall watching *Before The Devil Knows You're Dead* with my parents (a melodrama) and they were confused by the whole thing. They kept asking each other "why did she make that face? What did he just do with his hands?" And it's a little ironic considering they grew up with old Hollywood.
So most contemporary directors wouldn't even attempt it. Does that mean melodrama is now innovative and new?
On the other hand you can definitely take real dialogue too far. Almost every person I've ever talked to about it said they had to turn on the subtitles to understand what was being said in The Revenant due to all the mumbling.
Indian cinema use melodrama
Audio engineering has faced a lot of its own issues as cinema has evolved in the past couple decades, which has the largest portion of fault in how much more often we have to use subtitles these days.
Gosh! As a spaniard, I thought they only mumbled in spanish movies.
Thanks for letting me know that the plague is EVERYWHERE .😆
Your comment makes me think of Wes Anderson, who has indeed made melodrama innovative and new again.
@@Marmarket I knew there had to be someone I wasn't thinking of. I'm not a big Wes Anderson guy.
I love that John Garfield realistically “relaxing” on a couch blew people’s minds back in the day. “Damn, he really seems relaxed!” I honestly loved this video though.
The forgotten icon, really excited to dive into his work.
@@djstarsign The Breaking Point and Postman are both classics.
I still hate Brando and Dean's style though
@@beyourself2444 Dean is brilliant in Giant.
@@beyourself2444 Brando learned how to tame "the method" to create powerful performances, but James Dean is way over-rated. In my view, his performances are emotionally over the top. He wore his emotions on his sleeve and was far too melodramatic.
One reason I find Nicolas Cage so fascinating is that he offers an alternative acting model. Sure, he can do pure "naturalistic" acting and often does in his more acclaimed roles. But that's not his primary approach. He has an acting style he calls "nouveau shamanistic." It borrows elements from German expressionism and Japanese kabuki theater. The point is not to be realistic. The point is a kind of free, improvisatory expressiveness. Whether you like or dislike his acting choices, it's clear that he's not coming from a place of laziness or "bad" acting. He's making a deliberate creative choice, and it's deeply informed by his study of the history of acting.
I think his newer horror movie turn is what offers this way of looking at it.
For instance, kick ass isn't over the top, but it's fun nonetheless.
But there's a bit of sameness, for lack of a better word, than comes with his foray into more horror. His screaming and expressions in renfield seem like his screaming and expressions in longlegs, seem like his screaming and expressions in Mandy, etc.
What was once fascinating because you didn't see it so often has become, funnily enough, pretty predictable.
I was watching longlegs and the scene where he got in the car. Both me and my partner said, "He's probably going to yell here." Then he did. Lol
I've kind of lost interest and fascination because it's all so similar at this point. He doesn't really have a variety of expressing angst, anger, or anything of the like in his horror movies.
I thought Nic Cage was excellent in Family Man. He was really grounded and his chemistry with Tea Leone was jumping off the screen.
@@shettywap I think the sameness is a trap actors fall in. Like to me Jack Nicolson started the slide to being just Jack Nicolson in a movie with Batman, as opposed to acting. He could still act, but there were more instances of phoning it in after that point.
@recoil53 I'm right with you. They become caricatures of themselves. Deniro did the same thing.
Nic cage has the benefit of something like vampires kiss being over 30 years ago, but all that does is remind me that he's been reaching into that same bag of tricks since then. Lol
I genuinely think people just have some sort of interest in when he'll pull out his "crazy" scenes. Well, if we know when you're going to do it and how you're going to do it, I simply can't be arsed at this point. Lol
Anytime he's more reserved, it works a lot better. I don't much care for his acting even then, but he can still be solid. Kick ass, Pig, National Treasure, etc. All performances that I think are fine.
@@recoil53 also Pacino. Lol
As a former acting student who is a currently working actor myself, this is hands-down the best video I’ve seen to explain “method acting” to people outside of this world. Very concise, very clear, very informative. Great job!
It warms my soul to hear more light cast on Stanislavski's deep and powerful legacy. When I first arrived in Moscow, there were two things I had to visit immediately: Red Square, and Stanislavski Theater. It brought tears of joy to experience both. Riding the blue line metro while reading "An Actor Prepares" was a surreal experience. As another actor commented, there are a few errors in your analysis regarding Adler and Strassberg's younger days, but I nevertheless stand in admiration of your videssay.
We go with the tides, and we perfect the art - which it absolutely is, an art - taking knowledge from here and there.
"Love the art in yourself, and not yourself in the art." - Stanislavski
Thank you for sharing this comment
There's quite a gulf between immersive research and living as though you are a character. Practicing sign language to play a person who is hearing impaired, learning legal shop talk to play a lawyer, practicing tennis if you are going to play a tennis star, this is going to lend your performance natural authenticity. This is, to me, utterly different from demanding to be called the character's name and carrying your performance into your personal life. That being said, losing your own identity into a character for a while is kind of amazing, and I imagine the majority of people who do this do so in moderation and know how not to risk themselves or others.
This is a really good point. Learning about your character is good. But in my opinion, if you have to feel like you literally are the character in order to give a good performance, then you aren't a very good actor.
A good actor should be able to portray a character in a real way without becoming that character as a person.
@@allgreatfictionsDUDE! EXACTLY
I feel like learning how to play tennis for playing a tennis star is the basic minimum of RESEARCH. As for sign language, to me that feels like learning an entire movie script in a foreign language phonetically. At that point it's easier for the actor to actually learn at least the basics of the language, not to mention how it will lead to a better and more respectful performance.
For my favourite Hungarian movie, the main cast (who play metro ticket controllers) spent a day actually working the metro trains and checking tickets. Their experiences helped them inhabit their characters and inspired at least one oft-quoted line of the movie. I don't think anyone's considered this an example of Method Acting(tm) in the same way refusing to break character or living in the desert is seen by some.
It must depend on how villainous and potentially harmful the role
David Suchet saaid he needed therapy to get rid of the character in his thoughts and feelings, I thin it was a villain.
@@allgreatfictionsI 100% agree with you
Cate Blanchett's recent layered performance in Tar is probably the best lived in character I have ever seen. Without relying much on camera trickeries, edits, close ups while inhabiting the character completely. A true acting legend
@@rics1883 That performance is the great divider between realistic and entertaining. Some, like I assume you, derive pleasure from seeing realism and believability. For me that was not enough, and the realism of Tar went too far, venturing into realm of boredom. Realism always carries a risk - would meeting a real life Lydia Tar be interesting? I've met people like her and they have been mildly irritating in short term, profoundly boring in long term. And Tar is a looooong movie.
@charno_zhyem maybe you have problem with concentration
@@charno_zhyem People do want to overrate the "method" and the "legends" behind it while forgetting acting and movies are fantasies. I act and I had a teacher and director of mine going for hyper realism which broke all the molds of myself, but in the end the impressive thing was my transformation not the play itself. Sometimes it is that which people enjoy: the act of acting not the movie itself. Let's be honest, it is self aggrandizing to make themselves look more intelligent than they are while forgetting what entertaining fantasy is.
She already practised it in blue jasmine which is very similar
@@charno_zhyem I think for the type of story Tar was trying to tell, there was no other way to go than being as real as possible
My parents are acting teachers, so hearing the names Stanislavski, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and Uta Hagen again brought me back to sitting in on their acting classes
I remember first seeing Uta Hagen in The Other (1972). From what I just read, she had quite a list of well-established actors for students.
So one school of thought is that emotion gives birth to action, and the other is that action gives birth to emotion.
It reminds me of an argument I had with a friend over whether smiling produces happiness or being happy produces a smile.
excelente resumen.
You become what you pretend to be. Be it an honest man or a thief. Sooner or later your actions will define you - Aristotle
Smiling produces happiness. Seeing people smile & laugh can bring a new smile
One thing that has to be mentioned with why it feels so different is the mid-Atlantic accent (cross between English and American) was an affectation in older movies that actors took up. People actually did speak that way, but it was mostly a learned accent taught in uppercrust schools as the proper way of speaking. It represented a higher station in society so a lot of actors picked up the affectation for the screen.
As an actor...I'd say it was because back then it was just that....ACTING. I think now it's EMMULATING. A lot of the time, people want to see movies to escape their problems, not be reminded of them, so I think there's something to be said about the old style of acting and why old films have stayed relevant even when they are very "act-y" and why they can feel so comforting to people.
Tho I do love when I am watching a movie and I'm like WAIT THAT WAS GARY OLDMAN?!
(It's always Gary Oldman or Christan Bale lmfao gotta love Daniel Day Lewis too, but he does so few films that you know he's going to be in something. Gary Oldman just pops up and his acting is so impeccable that you don't even realize it's him!!! I love it)
I completely agree about old movies.
Yes Gary Oldman totally has that effect
I think this is also why Bollywood had a moment too
Wait, is that J.K. Simmons?
I’m realizing there is a reason I can’t watch old movies. They make me really uncomfortable because of what I view as overacting.
It just took everyone but Orson Welles a while to realize that the camera and microphone were 4 feet from their face, and they didn't have to shout to the folks in the cheap seats anymore.
Yup
Yeah, I was surprised this didn't come up in the video. You simply have to exaggerate facial expressions in a large theatre, otherwise the audience won't notice it. Hence the old-school theatre masks. Even when the cameras were close, it was a while until the image quality was high enough (both capturing it, and then displaying it on cinema, and then on low quality TVs) for subtlety to not get loss in the grain.
I don't think that the ability to do high quality close ups means that acting was bound to become more naturalistic, but it was a prerequisite.
@@StopmotionStudios13No.
@@MrShakespearefan They're correct, what's "No."?
I was so caught off guard when I saw Citizen Kane for the first time, felt like someone made a 1960s movie all the way back in the 40s... and it's just this weird, inexplicable outlier
Thank you so much for this video! A lot of film buffs learn a ton about cinematography and a little about editing, lighting, scriptwriting, and some other things, but know so little about acting that they can't seem to even talk about acting at all. It's common, even in relatively educated film discussion spaces, for conversations about great acting performances to be boiled down to, "there's nothing of value to say about acting, aside from whether the performance works for the film or not." And that's so reductive that it could be said of any aspect of any artform. Of course the *most* important part of any artform, for the audience, is the final product. But the underlying questions of what goes into producing that art are important for understanding, discussing, and producing it. So kudos to you for doing the work to learn about acting, its history, and some of the techniques actors use, even including a scene breakdown!
As you say, there are a lot of different techniques and approaches to acting, and as an artform, there is no one *right way* to do it. But there are a ton of tools for actors. Which tools an actor chooses to use comes down to which tools they have learned about or discovered for themselves, what they've experimented with and practiced, which of those tools the actor prefers, and what the desired outcome is for a given performance.
The comments are not appreciating enough of your hard work on this one. Absolutely well done, one of your bests
Acting comes from within. No matter how much we study - real talent will always outshine any method. I studied acting in Armenia, where reading Stanislavsky is a must. I faked-read it. Just could never force myself to read Stanislavsky, Chekhov or any of the others. They bored me. My dad, a director, told me you can only learn by doing and watching others' process of working. Even though I have 3 diplomas in acting, I personally learned it here and there, at private schools in La, at Improv Olympic and now through every film I come across. And TH-cam helps a lot. Thanks for such a thorough examination.
I always assumed it was because early actors hadn't internalized the difference between the screen and the stage. They were still acting like they would in a theater -- with over-enunciated dialogue and broad gestures designed to be understood by even the audience in the cheap seats. Movie directors also hadn't fully internalized this difference and so were unlikely to ask the actors to be more subtle. The art form is young, and with any evolving art form it takes a while to understand the unique properties of the form. The ability to do close-ups meant that even the smallest gesture could be conveyed to an audience. Similarly, you weren't having to project to be heard at the back of a theater, which meant that you could give a more dynamic vocal performance.
I find this spot on, and this video to be a bit of a reach. Its simply growth especially considering the short timeline of filming.
This. I remember a highly trained British actor wondering what the deal was with Marilyn Monroe: he didn't think she could act at all. Then he saw the film and the close up of the camera brought out the subtleties.
Acting is different for stage and screen and it is taught as such in acting schools.
@@dirtyflotsam And New Hollywood actually studying the past and dumping that unnecessary cr*p to grow the craft was huge. I mean directors to some degree did so before, but moving on to be free of the limitations of theater was big.
@@recoil53 ironically, The Group Theater (started by disciples of Stanislavski’s teachings) revolutionized stage productions and their impact on not just the world of theatre but early television and eventually Hollywood is still being felt to this day. It wasn’t just actors but directors who learned from The System and The Method in their approach to reach an emotional truth in embodying the characters and not just imitating surface emotions. The mid 60s was a time of revolution where reality was being televised in more frank tones and younger people were fed up with the artifice of spectacle films.
The “Hays Code” was starting to weaken and there were a number of important directors (who studied under the legends) who were willing to introduce more nuanced characters in their films and it ushered in an era where the new Hollywood leading men were flawed, more relatable and unconventional compared to the good looking, chiseled, leading men who had dominated for most of the golden age.
Audiences were receptive to these films and because of its profitability, more movies were produced that were more reflective of the reality of modern society (where before it was mainly based on morality and escapism). The public spoke with their dollars and they embraced this cultural shift.
@@djstarsign I forgot about the impact of general culture of the 60's on film.
Some of those flawed characters were about protesting the Vietnam War or the political system without coming out and saying that was what they were doing. Similar to how Japanese directors made a lot of movies with ronin and yakuza many of these flawed characters were critiques of society.
It's funny that you keep using Sunset Boulevard as an example of classical acting because the whole point of that movie is that it's about an aging actress who is stuck in her old ways but the movie predates A Streetcar Named Desire.
There's merit to both realism & expressionism. Some emotions can feel too overwhelming to keep down and we want someone to reflect it for us. I really love Vivienne Leigh's performance in Gone With the Wind (despite how that film has aged thematically) for how big and bombastic she portrayed Scarlet yet it "felt true".
This. I also, think that it worked for Leigh because her character is naturally very expressive in comparison to her peers.
Yes, I prefer expressionism in film and realism in real life myself!
I didn't think she was big or bombastic.
Leigh is a prime example of a wonderful balance between the two. There are moments in GWTW where her emotions are raw, realistic, and effective, and there are times when she's larger than life. It's a wonderful character cemented by a spectacular performer. Whatever your diagnosis of her style might be, there's never a moment when you don't believe her.
@@robb7398 Sorry, but you can't have read the book. Vivian Leigh WAS Scarlett O'Hara. Big and bombastic.
"My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?" has got to be the coldest actors version of "bless your heart" I have ever heard. Taking this man's whole life and soul right out of him, damn.
It wasn't intended to be harsh, it was just Olivier's personality. The two actors were actually very friendly with each other during the shoot.
Hoffman was going through a divorce, Olivier was believed to be dying and was heavily medicated. Olivier couldn't even remember his lines. The story is about the two actors modulating each others performances.
@@joadbreslin5819 It was a joke between two friends.
There is a lack of content like this nowadays. Glad to know someone is still actually making this kind of videos; questioning, critiquing and analyzing in depth what they know.
17:35 That’s the key differentiator and why Strasburg would be troubled by the complete immersion. Strasburg wanted to build a utility belt that could be deployed, but taking that a step (or two or three) beyond means that you’re beholden to the whims and reactions of the character-who, yes, is traditionally an a**hole-and you’re yielding the professional control that an actor should maintain. It should all be just tools in the belt that you can deploy where appropriate. If they are just tools, you can bring them to bear without making everyone else on set miserable in the face of living with the monster you portray.
Yeah, it's to try to get to what athletes would call "in the zone" - but that's a place that exists only within the game, not the locker room or outside.
And I choose that analogy because there was a psychological study of "clutchness" in sports. Those who were the most clutch don't remember all the details of the moment, they just did. Those who aren't remember trying to go through the steps.
So yeah, just naturally use the tools you have at the moment you need them. Don't stay in a f*cking wheelchair and make some poor assistant feed you.
Part of it too is that the actor following the System is meant to internalize the role, but not completely lose him/herself in them. Control is still a vital element that you lose by "going method." The System actor *believes* in the truth of the character's fiction using elements of their own psyche, but they have not *completely become* the character. There is a difference there.
Konstantin Stanislavski really had a huge part to play in the move away from theatrical to more 'emotionally authentic' and truthful performance. Reading his book 'An Actor Prepares' within the context of when it was written really shows how Stanislavski was beyond his time. His idea was that true acting is true art and living the part as he put it was the best way to do so.
WAY ahead of his time !!! Avant garde
That’s what happens when artists are given funds and ample time to craft their magic
Brilliant overview and analysis of Stanislavki's influence on 20th century acting. (I know Chekhov was deeply grateful to Stanislavki for his sensitive productions of his plays. Chekhov married the actress who brought THE SEAGULL vividly to life, Olga Knipper). Much gratitude!
Thank you for sharing this as I have been missing acting very much and this has reminded me that acting makes me happy when all the instructors, mentors, training and education deserves to shine again!
14:57 Stuff like this is why I really appreciate Hayden Christensen, he was criminally mocked for his misunderstood but genius performance as Anakin Skywalker: Socially awkward struggles to make eye contact and/or communicate feelings, a slow learner but also a prodigy in certain skills (piloting, mechanics), passionate about certain subjects, and often times failing to control his emotions that come out in dangerous burts--with lastly his overly strong attachment that borders on obsession with one person he feels truly understands him. His character has, what we would call today, high-functioning autism and as someone who has it themselves, Hayden really, REALLY captured all the subtleties of a neurodivergent male before it was really understood. I hate hearing him get bullied for not playing the atypical hero, but when you consider how people on the spectrum are bullied for the same things, it only validates the authenticity of his acting. The guy gets it.
so Darth Vader was autistic? lol
Hence, when Daniel Day-Lewis, Mark Strong, and Shia LaBeouf say, "I don't follow the Method," it's not a stubborn denial but simply the truth. They understand that true Method acting, as developed by Lee Strasberg and based on Stanislavski's system, is a specific technique which is UNRELATED to staying in character constantly.
If I had to establish an official term for the acting technique used by Day-Lewis, Strong, and LaBeouf to end the decades-long confusion and misuse/misappropriation of the term "Method", I would suggest "Immersive Acting" or, as per LaBeouf's own words, "Escapism Acting." I think these terms better capture its nature of disappearing into vastly different roles, personalities and sometimes, even physiques. Alternatively, we could honor its original pioneer by calling it "De Niroism Acting."
Personally, I categorize acting into 3 major types, 1) Representational/Theatrical Acting of the Golden Age Hollywood, 2) Strasberg's Method/Stanislavski System of the 50s to 70s Hollywood, 3) Immersive Acting/De Niroism Acting of 21st Century. Though I'm inclined to include a fourth type, which is the highly exaggerated Kabuki influenced style of acting that is pioneered by Nicolas Cage. Ethan Hawke said that Cage is the only actor since Brando to bring anything truly new and uncharted to the art of acting, while most actors just conform to the naturalistic based styles of either 2) or 3).
Wouldnt sais Cage pioneered but more like he helped to popularized in the west. Japenese actors have been doing it for years and Cage owes a lot to German actors like Klaus Kinsky
How do you know that
Americans think that only place that exists things is the US.
as an aspiring actor, this video was very thought provoking and actually helped de-mistify some of the daunting challenges that, at times, make it feel impossible to achieve success in this industry. thank you for reminding us that acting and filmmaking is an art- not a science!
Both acting is good in its own right.
In the right acting, if - within the other constraints - gets the right response from the audience.
I don't see naturalistic acting working so well on a consistent basis in a Wes Anderson movie. It pretty much calls for some expressionistic acting somewhere. Same with Barbie.
Context is everything.
No
@@denofcuriousmeltherat8378yes
Depends on the tone of the story
I didn't think that I was at all interested in this topic, but I enjoyed your voice so much that I kept watching, and discovered that I'm more interested in the topic than I thought!
I'm 29 and grew up watching old movies with my mom. I never questioned the acting in older movies and just saw it as normal for the type of movie/ story that was being told. It pains me when I see people my age or younger just assume all acting in "old "movies is bad and corny. They don't even bother getting into the story because they're hung up on the acting not being what they're use to which I just don't understand.
Cool
I completely agree with you. It's also very ungrateful, because we wouldn't have the blockbuster films of today or newer styles of acting if they didn't have the older ones to build on.
It's a 'we're so much better than they were' attitude which I deplore.
I feel like it’s the opposite. I’m 18 and grew up watching a lot of old movies as well and I genuinely feel like they were better. Much more expressive acting and you could feel the characters were immersed in it.
There's a whole new way to be a bad actor that didn't even exist in "old movies." Look at Nicolas Cage or Keanu Reeves or worse yet, Mary Louise Parker with that constant sneer of hers. And Adam Sandler? He's about as funny as rheumatoid arthritis. I find it difficult to watch any of them. There was plenty of subtle acting back in the day too: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Claire Trevor, Van Heflin, John Garfield, Irene Dunne, James Stewart, Montgomery Clift, etc, etc. I'd prefer to settle into a night with one of them than most of those working today... though there are some great ones to be sure.
@@heyo80I agree with you . I’m young and I prefer old movies .
I love this video so much! As an actress myself I've often thought there had to be difference between going method and using a method. But I've never heard anyone explain it as well as you have. I feel I've learned so much just watching this I can't imagine how long it took you to research this!
Tom cruise is the consummate professional. Gotta admire his dedication to his craft. But, yeah, following his career from the beginning, my friends and I used to joke when describing his movies by calling them: "Top Pool Shark," "Top Brother," "Top Bartender," "Top Race Car Driver," "Top Irishman," "Top Vampire," "Top" Etcetera.
So a movie star LOL
Top vigilante, Top time travel supersoldier
But then you watch Collateral, American made or Magnolia & realise how great of actor he can be
@@Sirrajj Tropic Thunder!
@@Star-hg1kt Yup. That's what the man said. Just sharing a lil anecdote highlighting why it's true for me.
This is your best video to date, Mr. Flight. Remarkably educational. Well done
Performanes so REAL that no one can bloody understand what anyone is saying without subtitles! What innovation.
Seriously! lol It seems like it's a combination of too much mumbling of lines and slurring of speech in modern stuff, plus the audio mixing is off somehow. Also, a lot of modern movies and shows look way too dark. The lighting is abysmal in a lot of newer movies like the filmmakers don't want you to see anything.
yes.....i hate it when the actors mumble. AND you cannot tell me that in real life there are not over the top extroverted people, i see them all the time
Old school acting is absolutely top notch. There's a lot to love about old Hollywood movies, and honestly, the acting is so captivating that it makes that time period really stand out. So many acting performances these days are incredibly boring and basic. I want drama, I want theater and I want good story telling.
Exactly how I feel too. I’m not entertained at all by downplayed and toned down performances. I love theatrics and intense portrayals, like another world/universe with captivating characters and scenes that are only possible in movies.
Theatrical performances can found in Indian movies still..😊
@@asantesamuel13 It depends for me. I feel like too much theatrics on a TV show/film feels like soap opera acting and can come across really cringey. It makes me think of an SNL skit. I like when they do that for SNL skits because I know it's not meant to be taken seriously. I can't take that kind of acting seriously and I'm not entertained by it.
I find old classics unbearable to watch. The characters don't feel real and it just ruins everything.
@@exploringcolorado720 I completely agree and I don't say that to troll. I'm sure it's different if you grew up during the time, but I get the feeling a lot of people are sort of telling themselves they like things which in many ways are inferior just because it's considered classic or associated with intelligence, "good taste", etc.
This is pretty inspirational. As a musician, I'm imagining how it applies to songs and performance, but also, as a filmmaker who works with different cultures it helps me recognizing that some of the people I work with may prefer representational acting over presentational...sometimes life is hard enough as is to have it shown back with complete realism.
Personally, I prefer Classic Hollywood Films, partly due to the fact that I grew up with them since my infancy, but also because of the fact that you recognize that it is outside the realm of realism, hence the phrase “Only in the movies”.
I feel the same. If I want to see real people act, I have only to walk our my front door!
Same here and for similar reasons. Because I grew up in the era of the 1980s which had limitations on what was being aired, I was almost forced to watch the older classic films from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s on TV because that's what was playing most of the time. Back then, even when 80s movies came out in the movie theaters, you still had to wait like a year before they came to the pay channels like HBO and Cinemax. The only other option to see them earlier was to rent the VHS tapes at Blockbuster. I shouldn't even say "forced" because I ended up really liking a lot of films from the 40s and 50s, especially in the film noir genre. The Maltese Falcon is in my top 10 films all time and I still consider that to be the best film noir movie ever and it's the one that basically jumpstarted the genre. Also, Sunset Boulevard is in my top 10 all time as I consider that to be the best film about Hollywood ever.
Agnes Moorehead (1900-1974) here commenting on the "Method" school of acting, "The Method school thinks the emotion is the art. It isn't. All emotion isn't sublime. The theater isn't reality. If you want reality, go to the morgue. The theater is human behavior that is effective and interesting."
We all might do well to listen to Agnes Moorehead, for my money one of the greatest, most versatile actresses ever to stand before a camera.
What a fascinating and informative video. 👏
From Ancient Greek theatre, through Noh, down to our modern forms and methods, we should appreciate them all.
As an amateur voice actor myself this is interesting to me because most of the time voice actors are in isolation with their performances.
In a way it's more pure form of acting. You have to really push imagination, to mentally put yourself somewhere, often no reacting to others.
TV shows will play back other actors recordings if they've been done before, but many projects are done remotely, self directed, just given scripts and let go to send back at a moments convenience.
It's a rare thing for all the actors in a scene to record together.
Tho if you look at how they record Anime in Japan they do perform with each other as a norm.
There was a scene I had once for a dub where the director wanted a certain energy that he wasn't getting from me and my scene partner so had us together in a call. We were a couple in the peak of a fight and by the end of the call we played out the entire scene without pausing at all. It was a fantastic experience, my first real taste of being able to play off the energy of a partner.
The project is a fandub for Coffee Talk btw. I played Baileys.
Neat, I remember seeing the casting call for that a while ago.
Ohh that's why the Naruto anime scene where Pain destroys Konoha feels so much different in English and Japanese dub
English dub feels like " typical that's a badass cold blooded villain "
Japanese dub feels like " I can finally release the pain and anger because this village caused me too much pain "
An hour-long Thomas Flight video? Praise the gods!
Man, TH-cam is so lucky to have Thomas Flight. This is well-crafted, well-researched and perfectly presented.
~Chris
Thank you so much!
@@ThomasFlight For real man, film criticism and analysis on TH-cam has taken a real downturn these last few years. Most of it is superficial, amateurish and borderline bigoted. But you speak from real experience and talk about craft in a way few people really do anymore. You've taught me a lot.
You touched on this a bit, but I'd love to see a deeper essay on the technical side of this conversation - the changes in cameras, sound, lights, etc. The miniaturization of equipment must have felt freeing to the artists in the 60s and 70s.
Not an actor here but like many I love Cinema and sometimes wonder why I can get so involved in a performance that it brings me to tears or chills. Thank you for the in depth analysis.
Some clarifications regarding Adler:
1) Stella Adler was most certainly NOT a student of Strasberg’s. In fact, Adler and Strasberg were students together at The American Laboratory Theatre, where Adler, Strasberg, and Harold Clurman (who would later marry Stella) studied the Stanislavski System for the first time with the Russian teachers (Boleskavski and Ouspenskaya) who remained after the MAT (Moscow Art Theatre) toured America. Stella Adler was an original founding member of The Group Theatre, together with Clurman and Strasberg. One thing that could have helped this discussion was how the actors, directors, and teachers who came out of The Group Theatre forever changed theatre, television, and film, particularly in America… the influence most don’t even recognize today.
2) Adler was born into an acting dynasty. The history of theatre in America actually starts with the Yiddish Theatre in New York first. Stella Adler’s acting family, headed by her father Jacob Adler and mother Sara Adler, were considered acting royalty. Stanislavski even knew of her father Jacob Adler’s famous performances and sought him out to discuss certain roles. So… Stella didn’t exactly have a normal childhood and had learned acting from her entire family and other Yiddish companies in New York - starting at 4 years old! By the time she joined The Group, Stella was already a trained and seasoned actress, with a couple of decades and hundreds of performances under her belt.
3) To say that Adler was all about the physical or external dealings of acting is an oversimplification and an overstatement. Adler taught in a very balanced and thorough way, unlike Strasberg. In fact, Adler’s most famous classes were her script interpretation classes in the 70s and 80s… they were world-famous, and packed with students, famous and not. Movie stars and working actors repeatedly came back to those classes with new students because no one, not even Stanslavski taught how to break down a script. Stella was quite unique in this regard. The fact that we even talk about characterization and script analysis today as we do is largely due to Stella’s classes. Strasberg and other teachers glossed over it. Adler held the playwright and their ideas up and gave it supreme importance. Our role as actors is to fulfill the big ideas of the text. This is why Adler was well-respected amongst all the great American playwrights of the time and had strong bonds with them: Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, etc. But the point is this: Adler taught everything. Much of script interpretation deals with finding psychology and themes (internals) and then making it doable. But Adler was intensely focused on creating a full character with immense realism and depth, internally and externally.
4) When Adler says not to read Stanislavski’s book, it is for a very good reason. Most of America had read the badly translated books of Stanislavki’s. It actually is very esoteric and is not very practical at all! Elizabeth Hapgood, the original translator of Stanislavski, cut out A LOT from the original books. She was not an actress and took a lot of literary liberties. What resulted was that the American English translation uses odd vocabulary and ideas that are wholly misinterpreted and twisted from Stanislavski’s writings… and are quite different from the original Russian and even the German translations. What the English speaking world received was a mess of a first book. Stanislavksi, up until his death, was still refining acting and teaching. He was quite against a fixed vocabulary and a “how-to” guide. To know more about this, seek out the work by Sharon M. Carnicke, an actress and teacher who speaks fluent Russian and has dedicated her life to setting the record straight, written a number of books and has taught on the topic, including Stanislavski’s fullest, most up-to-date teachings before his death.
5) Stella Adler was the only American teacher of that time to study directly with Stanislavski. They had spent time together in Paris, and Stella trained with him, clarifying everything that was being taught in America. At the time, his first, butchered translation of An Actor Prepares was not even published yet. Adler recorded her sessions with Stanslavski, together with a secretary and Harold Clurman. When they returned to America, The Group Theatre was riveted and relieved! So much was clarified. But Strasberg had a meltdown and had a famous falling out with Stella. Thereafter, Stella taught students at The Group Theatre the clearest, direct teachings from Stanislavski himself, and other students followed Strasberg. It was also then that Strasberg exclaimed, “I don’t teach the Stanislavksi System! I teach the Strasberg Method.” From there on, acting was infected with this “method” madness. At any rate… Stella’s work with Stanislavski was a revelation for the other actors. Most thanked Stella and went on to formulate their own unique systems for teaching and directing using Stella’s notes and recordings and charts, including Bobby Lewis, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, etc.
6) Finally, Adler’s own books were published after her death and assembled by journalists and editors. They have some powerful insights and principles that can inspire an artist indefinitely. But, as interesting as they are, they don’t represent the depth and scope of Adler’s in real, in-class teachings. As someone who was taught by Adler and continued studying with many of her protégés after her death, I can say that what the public thinks they know of Adler through her books. At best, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. At worst, people create all sorts of misunderstandings.
I truly tried resisting commenting on this video essay, but I just couldn't sleep knowing that some information keeps keeping overlooked or misrepresented, once again in this method culture mythology.
There is an inherent and perpetual risk in having people who are not fully trained, seasoned (decades) give all sorts of opinions about acting. It just gets further muddied and twisted. People on the inside for years and have trained with a number of these teachers know a different story. Reading some books on the history of theatre and cinema doesn’t even get close to what real crafts people know. There are more points of inaccuracies not relating to Stella Adler in this video essay, but it would take forever to pick them out one by one. It’s a good effort, but it’s still apparent that this is spoken not from the perspective of an actor, thoroughly trained, but from one who has read a few (particular) books on the topic. The art of acting, like other artforms - music, painting, writing - is far deeper and nuanced than this.
I suppose I could sum up my stance by quoting the great poet Dame Edith Sitwell: “I have devoted my whole life to writing poetry… and I’m not going to be taught by people who don’t know anything about it… I mean, I don’t teach plumbers how to plumb.”
This should be pinned. Shocked someone would claim Adler was Strasberg’s student.
Between the pretentious tone of the comment and the constant, over the top glazing of Adler, I've never been more repelled by a comment that, deep down, seems well informed and making some good points. Oof. I guess youtube comments are also an art.
Cool
@@fpedrosa2076 If my comment is the one has made you feel more repelled than any other comment… honey, you got a big storm comin’. I simply laid the facts out on the table as it relates to Adler and the craft in detail. If saying something as forcefully and clearly to address the fallacies and superficial analysis in the video is pretentious, so be it. I’m not out here looking to win awards for being polite. And if I were you, I wouldn’t be so offended by a TH-cam comment. Oof. 😅
@@classichollywoodwomen I had to replay that one a few times to check if my ears were deceiving me. 😂 Glad you caught it too.
Appreciate you making this video. De Niro actually studied with both Adler and Strasberg as did many other actors of that time period. And Brando credited Eliza Kazans directing for helping him learning acting as well as studying with Adler. Kazan as a director was actually pretty manipulative often taking from actors real lives to help invigorate a truthful performance. He was a fan of affective memory. Kazan himself was taught by Strasberg, so Strasbergs not entirely wrong when he calls Brando a student of the method, although he never directly taught Brando personally.
Wonderfully nuanced analysis. The important part is CONNECTION
I want to share my favorite recent quote about acting, from Matt Zoller Seitz (who I'm sure you know), talking about Big Acting - deliberately "Out There" performances, and in this case, specifically about Nicolas Cage in "Longlegs" - "[Big Acting is risky...] When it doesn't work, it's like releasing a ferret in a beauty salon. But when it works, it's like releasing a ferret in a beauty salon."
Took a tonne away from this, especially as I'm working on my first "proper" short film with actors. Thanks, as always, for your in-depth video essays!
What you mention at the end about how representational acting is used today is super interesting. I think that David Lynch, who I somehow always come back to when watching your videos, uses this brilliantly in his work to create a sense of unease and dissonance exactly because we are no longer use to seeing this kind of acting and because it represents a bygone era that evokes many of the themes he is working with. And it can be used within a story as a way to represent the mental state of a character, such as Naomi Watts in much of Mullholland Drive, who doesn't have access to her own emotions because she is living out a fantasy.
I feel other directors like Guy Maddin do this too.
The lesser known knowledge about method acting is that there is a scale to method acting, and the extreme versions of method acting are what tends to be talked about and criticized. However, many actors use method acting without reaching the extremes, and it works fine. Method is just finding ways to get into the mind of the character, and it can be nice to discover things about the character if playing them off of the set or out of the rehearsal room / script.
This is the best video on this subject I've seen. I know the "Marathon Man" story is well known but I don't think I've seen it mentioned in another YT video.
This is such a great analysis of the philosophy behind not just acting, but storytelling as a whole.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Genuinely, and I say this with all my heart, the greatest transition into an sponsorship segment that I have ever seen in any video
Wow what a great video! I learned so much about acting. It all makes perfect sense now. In the early days before motion pictures when live stage plays in theaters were the standard of entertainment, larger than life performance was necessary. Being an actor in a play meant literally to act or pretend. The key word being pretend. The goal was not to be realistic. Plays were works of fiction, stories in which characters existed and behaved unlike people in real life. Audiences did not want to see a recreation of real life. They wanted to see something bigger and grander. This is what is known as theatrical acting. As an audience member in the live stage play era you knew the people on stage were acting due to their over-the-top performances.
Nowadays, the audience is not supposed to be able to tell the cast in a movie are acting. In other words, actors don't act anymore. The goal of achieving realistic performance means the audience is not seeing an act or pretend emotion. They are seeing the cast experience real emotions on screen. The stories in modern films are fiction but the cast performances are real. The question now becomes do actors/actresses exist anymore? Why spend the money going to acting school when pretending emotion is no longer the objective? Actor/actress are old words that no longer apply in my opinion. If you cry in a scene, you are not acting. You are actually crying. Pretending to cry is acting.
William Shanter is often made fun of and accused of overacting however his style of performance was perfect for the external type of acting used in the early days of Hollywood. With that said, Shatner never learned how to make the switch from theatrical acting to giving a performance grounded in reality.
Acting Styles are so interesting.
When creating a character you are studying the history of them in the story. Then you let go, trusting that the character history is still there. The big thing is the ability for an actor to listen to their scene partner. If an actor is actually listening and reacting truthfully based on what the other actor gives, you can see the truth unfolding.
I think about James Dean in East of Eden. The scene where he goes to his father and cry’s after the actor rejects his money. Raymond Massy hated James Dean for choosing to cry instead of being angry which I believe is what the screenplay called for. When James Dean did the opposite, he made Raymond’s character look even more prideful and an asshole because in the truth of that moment, Raymond couldn’t help but feel like James was hijacking the scene. It’s what makes it sooo great!
I always think about how "A Streetcar Named Desire" was like the turning point for acting in a good way, Vivien Leigh classical style vs Marlon Brando more realistic approach works wonders for that film.
(lmao, maybe I should post my comments after the video)
As an actor, I've had quite a few peers who employ grasping onto past experience for emotional reaction on stage. While it can result in incredible moments in a performance, these are also usually the most emotionally unstable people I've known. Also, the auto caption translated "relaxation techniques" into "relax Asian techniques" haha.
It's also funny how the marathon man story both changes and doesn't. The version I've heard over the years is that Dustin Hoffman was running around to make himself as exhausted as the character would be before Olivier's response.
can confirm, also they are re-performing as in rebirthing, not moving on, a type of self obsession, an emotional diva,
Another great video. I will add to this that much of the change has to do with the change in society. We live in a society these days that is much more relaxed. People go to work in whatever they feel like, whereas in 1930 morning train services into global cities were filled with people wearing basically the same unofficial 'uniforms' - suit, overcoat, hat and paper. Likewise, women were mostly at home, or in secretarial/support roles. This bled into how people operated and behaved. Manners mattered and the scope for 'free speech' was significantly reduced - particularly in public settings. Therefore, although there was a lot of 'dramatic' acting, there was also a lot that happened on screen that reflected the mores and norms of the world in general. Life in the early era of film was about fitting in, keeping up appearances and to some degree 'performing' as expected. In short, while your points are valid and interesting, there is also the simple fact that the medium is reflecting society.
I think the biggest place where we still see the old "representational" style of acting, is in comedy, and specifically sit-coms.
Most fantasy films too, lord of the rings, Harry Potter, Disney villains.
@@LewisBavin Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter really don't strike me as that style of acting at all. Disney Villains I definitely see, and I suppose you could make an argument for some specific Harry Potter characters, but otherwise I really just don't see it.
What specifically makes you say that Lord of the Rings is "representational style" acting?
@peterlewis2178 actually yeah you're right, every character in lodr is grounded in realism and nuance. No one is hammy and theatrical at all.
@@LewisBavin I'm guessing you're probably being sarcastic? If so, I disagree. I think their acting seems pretty grounded in realism. Is there some level of theatricality in the way they interact with each other? Yeah. But I read that largely as the etiquette and customs of their world. People don't always act "realistic" in real life when they're being formal. But the emotions and general character behavior/mannerisms to me all feel firmly rooted in realism.
A. Those clips (The Maltese Falcon, Phantom Thread) are not so different.
B. Look at period reviews: emotional authenticity WAS an expectation.
'"It Happened One Night" is a good piece of fiction, which, with all its feverish stunts, is blessed with bright dialogue and a good quota of relatively RESTRAINED scenes.' (NY Times 1934).
"The author would have been nowhere without the DEFT direction of Frank Capra and the SPIRITED and GOOD-HUMORED ACTING of the stars and practically most of their support." VARIETY
C. Cagney is not a good example of type-casting, since he also did musicals and rom-coms.
D. Bogart is quite different in THE MALTESE FALCON and THE BIG SLEEP. The similarities are due to the studio and the genre. It's nonsense to talk about him communicating hidden emotion in roles that don't call for it--except towards the end of THE BIG SLEEP, where the script calls for it, and he acquits himself quite well. The latter was poorly reviewed but did excellent box office: time has shown the critics were wrong and the audiences right.
E. Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise when he does star parts. Moments in MAGNOLIA are star moments, and others more 'realistic.'
F. You put Italian Neorealism out of order. This movement changed film acting in America. And since some of the actors who worked for Italian directors were American and NOT students of the Method, e.g., Broderick Crawford and Richard Basehart, you can't simply associate realism in acting with the Method.
G. DeNiro STUDIED The Method in New York. Daniel Day Lewis did not STUDY the Method: he simply employed elements of it.
H. Relatedly, PLEASE don't use "Method" to refer to any and all attempts for the actor to get real experiences similar to that of the character. This shows a total lack of understanding of what Stanislavsky did, wrote about, and taught.
I. A Wikipedia article is not a psychological study. And a Wikipedia article with only two sources is not a good source. And generalizing about Method acting (which you don't even successfully define) is shoddy at best.
J. Stanislavsky wrote three books on acting. If you want to know what the Stanislavsky Method was, you can read three books. That's not a lot to ask. And there are many other books detailing how the Method was adopted (and shunned) in the U.S. I'm not talking about Butler's book: I'm talking about books going back decades which it doesn't seem like you've bothered to look at.
K. Garfield is different in FOUR DAUGHTERS because the CHARACTER is different. It cannot simply be put down to acting technique. Simply put: he's too good an actor to do what everyone else is doing when the character is from a different universe.
L. Other scholars use "presentational" and "representational" exactly the opposite way Hagen does.
M. Exercises are not acting. Strasberg developed those exercises for reasons. Once you can do what you need to do, the exercise is no longer needed.
N. Stanislavski called his method "notes for moments of difficulty." The idea is NOT that you use a technique ALL THE TIME--say, in order to recall an emotion; rather, you might use that technique when the emotion does not come naturally from all the other work you and the actors and director have done to make the events of what's being acted specific and real.
O. You're talking about what Stanislavski called the "method of physical actions," but I'm not sure if you're aware of that. That's from his third book.
Dude, you need to chill. You also need to finish the video before writing your notes.
@@angelsunemtoledocabllero5801the video is very inaccurate, the comment is on point, so you can cry to your mom sissi
Another classic in the making!
Big props to @benfromcanada too for great editing of clips over all this awesome research and analysis
This feels like such a comprehensive video. Thank you so much for putting it together ❤️
I've read all the books mentioned and have a BFA in drama. You accomplished your task here brilliantly and economically. This video will benefit anyone interested in the subject, whether an expert or a curious fan.
Everyone has their own preference. Myself, I don't drop character 'til I've finished the DVD commentary.
I'm sorry you haven't been able to find other work in the interim.
You people make me sick!
Just watched this amazing video in one go. Thank you Thomas.
There are many people who enjoy presentational acting more than the representational and one of them is my dear mom. When I was spending time at home during the pandemic, I realized that the way she approaches to tv series or any kind of movie is very simple: She's already tired of housework and she just wants to watch something she wouldn't put a lot a lot of effort to understand. Presentation acting in general is easier to follow, it's filled with stereotypes that you'd recognize and say something like "Aha, this is the funny guy in the group and this one is the natural leader.". You don't need to carefully examine the characters and their "realistic" feelings like dilemmas, shame, guilt etc. I don't take it lightly, it's just the way it is.
I believe the main reason behind the shift towards the representational acting is the socioeconomic changes in people's lives during the 20th century. Shorter working hours, proliferation of studying a college (hence more free time tbh), desk jobs and finally the rise of the television. We started to consume more content in the video form and got more critical at it. I'm a product of this and I don't treat movies like my mom. The "entertainment" is just a secondary goal for me at this point. I want to feel what the character feels. I want to feel the wind in my face. It's a damn serious business and it takes representational acting to satisfy me.
Let me finish with this: One of my friends got married and have two kids now. Therefore he's living a more tiring life and has way more responsibilities than I do. I recently visited him at his house and saw him chuckling at "Police Academy" on tv. (It's still televised in Turkey time to time) This guy's favorite director during the college was Jean-Luc Godard.
One of the reasons I love A Streetcar Named Desire was the duality of Vivien's and Marlo's styles. Viv, the classically trained actress, was old and past her prime. Marlon, the method actor, was young with his best days still ahead. The meta commentary is fascinating.
Perhaps the character of Blanche was old and past her prime but Vivien herself was anything but! There are moments in the film where her acting surpasses anything else ever captured on celluloid. I would say that despite her classical training, she developed her own style that could very well be understood as Method at times, particularly in this film as she herself declared the role tipped her into madness in real life.
Her performance would stand up today.
Vivien Leigh was in her late 30's when she made the film.
Bad example, as Vivien Leigh was one of the few actors of her age who would really instill drama and naturality in her characters. Henry Fonda would be another.
I´m just watching this right now... what a audiovisual pleasure, man.
(A video about the wonderful cinematography and use of the low quadrant framing of Mr. Robot would be fire, by the way!).
Well done, Thomas.
I appreciated your level in detail this dissection of film acting.
I think “method acting” has a lot of value in the right context. Experiencing a sport or occupation that is central to a character or story, having crew and cast use your character name/time *while filming* or other similar and reasonable techniques to enable authenticity or maintain the world and headspace you’re having to live in makes a lot of sense. However, you should never need to cause harm to yourself or others in order to do this.
Acting is so emotionally draining. It's a wonder how everyone keeps going in this profession. After going to college for Theater, I couldn't take how much emotion I had to put into it. It often left me depressed.
Some people live to express themselves, it gives them their greatest joy. Others want to hide themselves in the most tiny hidden private place.
I had trouble describing the "theatrical" acting for a while, but the explanation was right there in the word the whole time and I was overthinking it: it's literally just stage play acting 💀reminds me of the time late in my life where I finally realized "Oh Jeez" means "Oh Jesus"
or an abbreviation of "Oh, Gee whiz" from ages ago.
@@Avery_4272 Which is still euphemism for “Jesus” and “Jerusalem” (as in swearing by the city of Jerusalem).
I haven't watched a long video like that for a long time until now. You did a really good job keeping my attention and i admire all the work you put into this!
Thanks!
This awesome video summarizes everything we were taught in my first acting class and in the last part of a theater history class so beautifully
50 minute Thomas Flight Video just in time for cooking dinner? I guess We are both cooking today
@45:58 the Ferris Wheel scene in The Third Man [1949] is my favorite example of "old school" theatrical acting (Cotten) and what would become the more "modern" naturalistic acting (Welles) occurring in the same exact scene.
Bravo. Incredible work. So happy I found your channel
this video is so long I feel like it deserves its own letterboxd entry. Good work and I really appreciate all the effort and research put into this
Just opened TH-cam, great timing Tom, appreciate it. ;)
I don't even wanna imagine how much research must have gone into this one, Tom. So insightful, interesting and in-depth. Keep doing what you do.
Honestly, Isaac butler’s book on the method and the history of Stanislavski’s influence on modern acting is a treasure. There’s so much history that was primarily focused on stage acting but as movies became talkies, a lot of Stanislavski’s disciples revolutionized screen acting. Butler’s writing is impeccable and he has such a powerful way of capturing the details of the evolution of the System into its fractured variants.
When I was a child I had no visible emotions. I never laughed, never cried, nor smiled, and many found me creepy for that reason. The truth is that I didn't know how to express emotions.
It took me years of studying those around me, imitating their expressions and how their vocal tones differed when they felt different emotions, to myself in the mirror until I finally managed to seem "normal".
Now people around me keep telling me how good I am at acting, and it has gone to the point that people believe the lies I've told and the roles I've played so wholly that they don't believe me when I actually tell the truth. I can vividly show any emotion at any time, smile sweetly as if I'm happy to see you, even if I'm in the depths of despair or so full of rage that I'm on the cusp of breaking your neck.
I no longer know completely what the real me is, and the fact that people around rejects the truth, rather believing the lies, when I tell it, frustrates me to no end, and I don't know what to do...
So you just have aspd…
have you spoken with a professional? that might really help you discover the things you want to about yourself and help make connections that don’t feel falsd
@@alexx5064 I've known several people who were about to finish their masters in psychology, and none of them could get a reading on me (some of them got severely depressed and stressed out once I told them the deep stuff), but I've yet to speak to an actual professional.
Thanks for the advice though.
@@thorsteinnorman7133 yeah bro, I meant it sincerely fr- living inside a mind/head that isn’t comfortable and the feelings of dissociation really sucks and I hope you find the mental peace you deserve
@@alexx5064 Thanks a lot. I will try finding a therapist as you suggested.
What a great video. Very informative, and clear, and precise. Beautiful work ! Thank you !
I don't know how I got here, but thank you for the facinating hour long video I just watched on a topic I never realised I was interested in :)
Modern movies and acting generally suck. These days movies over rely on CGI. To the point it becomes annoying. Older movies have far better writing and the acting is more entertaining.
I agree. Modern acting, as naturalistic as it is, really, really is not entertaining at all.
I think it's writing that's the problem. These actors would seem more impressive to you if the writers these days weren't so dim witted.
@@SquareNoggin It really is both. Many modern actors (whichever country they are from or whatever language they use) have problems with diction and enunciation, as well as expressing non verbal/body language.
Exactly! lol I can barely even watch modern stuff anymore because how bad the writing, and by extension, the acting is. Writing is more important than acting because really good/great writing can elevate the performances of mediocre actors, but bad writing can actually make good actors come across as amateurs. If I'm saying to myself that "real people don't talk like this" or if the plot itself is nonsensical, I'm pretty much taken out of the story immediately. I've noticed in the last decade or so that the dialogue in a lot of movies and shows is eerily similar in a bad way. Being a modern movie/show doesn't equate to it being realistic or believable.
Acting doesn’t need to be realistic, you can give a good performance that is totally unrealistic
Glenn close as cruella is one of my all time fave performances
Phantom Thread 😍
Great bit of history on the evolution of acting. Seems like the idea of method acting is personal not each performer who might use it. Thanks for another engaging video.
This is brilliant. I always wondered how we got from the theatrical acting to more contemporary, naturalistic acting. I understand what thomasFlight is saying although I have no background in the history of acting.