WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ACTING?

The illustrations for this piece are all of playwrights, but what I really want to talk about here is actors and acting. I want to ask, what is the purpose of acting? How does an actor know when he's doing it right? I've been spot reading in acting books lately and the consensus of opinion in these books seems to be that dramatic acting is all about creating  believable and appealing characters...but is it? I'm no expert on the subject, but somehow that seems inadequate.

Believable and appealing are important building blocks, but surely that's all they are...building blocks. We need to ask, what's an actor supposed to build with them?

In my humble opinion, what the actor needs to build is... a work of art. It's not enough to hold a mirror up to reality. The actor's job is to create something entertaining and profound that's better than reality. When he does his job right he stylizes his voice and movement to create a thing of awe-inspiring beauty and force. Through sound and motion, through his personal philosophy and a sense of vocal and visual music...he creates a force of nature. He blows the mind of his audience.

To make my second point I'll have to lapse into mysticism. I'm sticking my neck out here, and I may regard this as utter nonsense when I wake up tomorrow, but it seems to me that some of the best live action dramatic actors deliberately take a story and use it as a springboard to explore the mysterious universe that underpins our own. Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani did that in "The Fugitive Kind." What they were expressing in that film seems true, but it's very difficult to put into words.

It seems to me that the world is full of strange rules, patterns, tensions and assumptions that none of us can articulate, but which we all know exist. Some actors thrive in that world. They deliberately go for nuanced motivations that defy description. My mystical way of saying it is that they step sideways into the true architecture of reality.

I don't believe that it's necessary for most good actors to do what I just described, but aren't you glad that some do? Tennessee Williams' plays demand that kind of actor.

That's pretty vague, isn't it? Aaaargh! Maybe I'll return to this subject when I've had a chance to think about it a little more.

BTW: The caricatures shown here are all by David Levine. They are in descending order: Chekhov, Odets, Ibsen, and Tennessee Williams.

ACTING AND STAGE MOVEMENT FOR ANIMATORS

WAS BETTE DAVIS CRAZY?

The way I heard it, John Huston was so taken with Bette's over the top rage in "Of Human Bondage," that he was hot to do a film with her which would be one long mad scene.  With "In This Our Life" (1942) (above) he finally got his chance.

The expressions Betty makes in this film are not to be believed.  She must have spent a lot of time in front of mirrors at home, figuring it all out. 

You have to admire her for putting so much into a role that made her look evil and crazy.

Bette was a live action cartoon character. I can't believe that no modern animation studio except Spumco ever attempted to use poses like this.

Animation fans talk about Disney's Cruella de Vil as if she were the ultimate example of villainous cartoon acting. She's okay, but she can't hold a candle to Bette (above).  Disney should have pushed Cruella farther.

Here (above) Bette begs a dying old man to help her get out of a crime she committed.  He's only moments away from meeting his maker and can't force himself to pay attention to her.

She's outraged at his self-absorption (above) and gives him a piece of her mind. The last thing he sees on Earth is Bette screaming at him. What a scene!

Oooch! Big mistake (above)! Never slap a crazy person, not unless you want to find arsenic in your morning tea.
Look at the way Bette reacts to the slap.

Bette plays crazy so well, that it's hard to resist wondering if she was crazy in real life. I wish I knew. She certainly had a reputation for being hard to get along with.  Her daughter wrote a vitriolic "Mommy Dearest"-type biography, called "My Mother's Keeper" which I'm reading right now, but there's no way of telling if the book is reliable. 

That's Olivia de Havilland above. I digress to include her here just to call attention to the number of good manhandling scenes there are in the Huston film. We could do this easily in 2D animation, but you're not likely to see it in computer films. In 3D the polygons would interfere with each other and produce a hideous monster. 

Back to Bette acting crazy: Vincent Sherman, the director of my favorite Bette film, "Old Acquaintance," had an interesting story to tell about it.  He said Bette gave him a lot of trouble at the outset of the film but eventually became friendly. Even so he got the feeling that he was walking on eggs, and had to be very careful. 

One day, near the end of the project, Bette confided to him that she loved him, and he didn't know how to respond. Soon after her husband (or boyfriend...I can't remember) came to visit Sherman and advised him, for his own good, to be careful, that having an affair with Bette would be like taking a bull by the horns. The implication was that Bette was crazy. The affair never occurred, and Bette and Sherman parted amicably. 

Sherman looked forward to working with his old friend on their next film together, "Mr. Skeffington," and was shocked when, with no warning, Bette showed up on the set ready for war, and loudly refused to co-operate with Sherman on absolutely anything.  The entire shooting became a famous disaster.

So was Bette crazy? I don't know, but does it matter? If she was crazy we can be grateful that she channeled that craziness into her art, and by doing so redefined film acting. 

BETTE DAVIS ACTING TECHNIQUES

I'm a huge Bette Davis fan, and so are lots of people in the animation industry.  In view of that, it's hard to imagine why her style of acting, or anything remotely similar to it,  never gets into gig studio feature animation. Our industry churns out cartloads of perky, predictable, feminist Cal Arts heroines that nobody cares about. You'd think that in all that clutter somebody would find room for a heroine based on a different model.  Someone more like...well, like Bette. 

I thought it might be fun to examine what that style consists of.  It's a big subject, and we won't be able to cover it all in one post, but we can make a start.

Come to think of it, maybe modern actresses would have a hard time doing what Bette did, because her acting style was built around around carefully articulated speech, and not many film actors study that any more.  Bette gives almost every new syllable a different facial expression.

I also love the technique (above) called "leading with your eyes," a trick used so often by Davis that it ought to be named after her.  

Boy, she really fishes (above) for those those consonants.  She inflates her chest and cranks her head up in order to snatch them from the air.

Davis has great cheeks (above) , that look sunny when she smiles.  Sometimes she plays against type and combines happy cheeks with seedy eyes. 

Sometimes she says a whole word or two with her eyes closed.  Dark eyelashes and high, clearly defined eyelashes  on a smooth face help the effect.

Sometimes Bette scans the person she's talking to (above) with her eyes. She carefully studies the wrinkles and buttons on the other person's shirt while they talk. This is a classic scene stealer's trick.

Talking about scene stealing, here's (above) Davis stealing a scene from Mariam Hopkins.  Hopkins does a lot a lot of broad crying here, and no doubt believed she was the center of attention when the scene was shot,  but the scene really belongs to Bette.  She employs an attention-getting stare that vaudevillians called "the fish."

Once Davis stole a scene from another actress by unbuttoning her blouse in the shadows behind the woman. Davis played hardball, no doubt about it. Let me make it clear that I'm not criticizing her for this. She honed scene stealing into an effective style, and backed it up with virtuoso acting. I wouldn't have wanted her to change a thing.

Davis (above)must have spent a lot of time infront of a mirror, getting the character right.

She could make faces that were unique and unforgettable, like the one above.  Talk about a picture being worth a thousand words....

Ditto.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE?

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Hi, Mr. Potter. Did you want to see me about something?"

MR. POTTER: "About something? Why heavens no, boy! Do two friends who've known each other as long as we have, need an excuse to talk? Have a seat! Take a load off your feet!"

MR. POTTER: "I want to introduce you to my brother, Ebeneezer..."

MR. POTTER (V.O.): "...and my other brother, Samuel. My brothers and I are partners in the company."

JIMNEY STEWBALL: " 'Pleasure ta meet cha'."



JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Look, Mr. Potter....If you have something to say I think it's best just to spit it out."

MR. POTTER: "Spit it out? You do have a way of getting to the point, don't you Jimney? Okay, let's see what we have here."

MR. POTTER: "Why, it's a private detective's report, and look...it's about you."

MR. POTTER: "It says that you've acquired debts that led you to borrow from your own Savings and Loan!"

MR. POTTER: "Oooo...borrowing from your own company's funds. Conflict of interest. That's naughty."

SAMUEL: "Let's be frank, Mr. Stewball. You have a narcissistic wife who requires enormous quantities of fancy clothing every month, do you not?"

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Well I wouldn't exactly say...I mean not every...well...well, er, maybe."

INSERT OF JIMNEY'S WIFE: (She kisses herself repeatedly).

(Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!)

EBENEEZER: "And a senile mother-n-law who's always being fined for running around the neighborhood naked?"

INSERT OF JIMNEY'S MOTHER-IN-LAW.

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Yeeeaaah...Gee, I wish she wouldn't do that."

MR. POTTER: "(Sniff!) I sympathize with you. I know you're honest. It says here that you've paid back most of the money already."

MR. POTTER (CONT): "Even so, as a stockholder I could have you arrested. Not that I would, of course."

MR. POTTER: (Slams the table): "BUT I SHOULD!!! You're not a responsible business man!!!!"

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Well, Mr. Potter...I did build houses for twenty families last year."

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Some of them had trouble meeting the payments, and I took up the slack with my own money. That meant I had to borrow to pay for all the fancy dresses and nudist fines."

MR. POTTER: "I know, I know. You don't have to explain anything to me, Jimney. Just sign this bill of sale and your debts will be a thing of the past. Of course I'll foreclose on all those dirty clients of yours who work with their hands, but what do you care?"

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "What do I care? My father worked with his hands, and his father before him."

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Doggone it, Mr. Potter! Ya sit there in your fancy chair, and ya think you're better than everybody else. Well, you're not!"

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "In the vast scheme of things, you're just an insignificant..."

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "An insignificant..."



JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Just a...just a....."

MR. POTTER: "Calm down, Jimney! Calm down! You haven't heard the rest of the offer! We'll take care of your family for you."

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "My family?"

SAMUEL: "Yes, your wife and mother-in-law would be removed to an impossibly remote cannibal island. Everyone runs around naked there, so your mother-in-law wouldn't mind."

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "But...but what about my wife?"

EBENEEZER: "The first foreigner they've ever seen. She'll be worshipped as a god. It's every narcissist's dream."

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Yeah...yeah, it is kind of, isn't it?"

JIMNEY STEWBALL: "Okay, where do I sign?"

All the parts in this parody played by me, Eddie fitzgerald. I just wanted to see if I could play old man parts.