GOING DEEPER INTO METHOD ACTING
AS WE focus In this clip, Cagney is only pretending to be a lawyer, so the "bad" performance is on purpose. Still the clip shows the difference between good and bad acting. The "performance" Cagney gives in the clip is bad acting, an acting that "indicates" emotions instead of living them.
The goal of "method acting" (an American term), invented by the Russian actor, Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938), was to use a "method" to help actors "be" the part instead of "indicate" the part by conventional use of gestures or voice ("stencil" acting). This would force an "end result" instead of making the emotions come naturally from relaxation and concentration (see below).
The actor relaxes to allow true feelings, aided by memory ("emotional recall"), to show (see below). Traditional actors stiffen the body in formal poses, as in the Cagney clip.
The actor starts to feel the part. But these feelings come from the script's "given circumstances": The character is 40 years old. He is dying of cancer. He is a bank employee; a father whose son doesn't speak to him, etc.
These "given circumstances" are mastered. Then an "unbroken line" is established, to fill in the missing parts with the actor's imagination.
The actor builds a complete "image" of a character. Scripts don't tell much.
Shakespeare tells only a little of Juliet. The actress uses her imagination to fill in the missing parts in an unbroken line or image to act her part truthfully.
The actress uses the "magic if" or "as if." How would she, a 30 year old actress, behave "if" she were a 14 year old school girl madly in love?
Only by this magic "if" can she believe in this school girl and not just use gestures and voice to force an "end result" without feeling the part. This would result in stencil acting, copying conventional gestures and movement by skipping on stage, giggling, and pounding her heart when she sees Romeo!
"Truth" in acting follows from "as if." This is the "belief" in one's role from which personal feelings flow.
Pick up your classmate's pen. Now it's a bomb.
Unless you use an "as if," you will not handle the pen properly, "as if" it were really a bomb. You lack full "belief" it is a bomb.
Now ask yourself, "How would I handle this pen if it were really a bomb"?
Your first action is to use your eyes to silently appeal to others to take it from you. That's the easiest way: let others do it for you.
(The actor "builds" his character from the "given circumstances," using emotional memory [see below].)
You're too tense to gulp. Gulping would "indicate" your emotion (stencil it in, trace it) rather than live it.
Now your classmates speak. You ignore them.
You don't take your eyes off the pen. You lay it down gently on the desk. Not breathing, you step slowly back, away from the bomb.
It's no longer a pen: it's a bomb! No need to act; behave naturally. This is "truth" in acting based on "faith" in your part, "as if" it were real.
Following her "as if," a 30 year old actress builds an image of Juliet through hard "preparation." This means book research and personal observation of real people of the same type, gender, class, age, etc.
Her research builds an "unbroken line" and "spine" to her character. She no longer reads lines or acts scenes.
She is a whole character. She knows what she has said to Romeo that is not in Shakespeare's play. She knows what Juliet did when she was four years old. This explains, in an unbroken line, what Juliet now does in the play.
The butler in Scene Four serves drinks from the downstairs kitchen. The play only says, "Enter butler, serving drinks."
But the method actor who plays the butler will create an unbroken line for him:
The butler has been working all day. It's a hot day in the play. It's hot in the kitchen. His clothes are damp. He has walked up two flights of stairs. The audience faintly hears him pant quietly as he serves the drinks. No role is too small for a good actor.
The actress "lives the part" of Juliet by "emotional recall." She recalls personal feelings from her own life. At 14 she too had a secret boyfriend.
What if she didn't? She felt love for her sister or her puppy or her goldfish. Her parents didn't want her to keep her pet. Those feelings are used instead.
This is "substitution." It happens not only in "preparation" for the part, but on stage.
Say the stage Romeo is short, fat, and bald. The actress replaces ("substitutes") the short, fat, and bald man with her lover or best friend.
None of this happens without "concentration" or "moment to moment" feelings that are one's own. By "concentration" on her personal feelings, the actress "adapts" or "adjusts" to the other actors "as if" they were real.
"Moment to moment" she recalls past feelings. "Moment to moment" she fondles with delight the penny her father gave her as a child. But in the play it's a necklace.
Each moment she strokes the arched back of the purring kitten. But on stage it's a stuffed toy.
She smiles at the unattractive man on stage. But she remembers her real-life handsome lover.
So the actress concentrates on her "true" feelings. There is no need to "act" or "indicate" feelings or gestures that are not hers.
Her personal feelings (based on affective memory, emotional recall, and substitution of objects) give "truth" to her part. She has become her part.
Her gestures and voice seem "true" to her and her audience. She played a cranky mother.
Be careful on the way home! For when you speak to her she will snap at you "as if" you were her daughter.
This follows from her "faith" in her role. She believes in the character she plays.
Her personal "image" of the character was carefully prepared. It was "built up" from research into the "given circumstances" (facts) of the script, an "unbroken line" that completes the image only partly outlined in the script, and emotional recall. The character is "real" to her.
She believes in the role. She does not "indicate" an "end result" of passion.
She is truly a 14 year old girl madly in love with a youth named Romeo, using personal memories to be the part. Using the Method, she is the part. This is the "I Am" of "faith" in one's role that makes acting "true."
Hours after the performance, she relaxes. She lets go of the role. Now it's safe to talk to her.
Method acting was invented for the stage. But the paradox is it's most visible in the sound cinema, where old-style "stencil" acting could not work.
To see old-fashioned mechanical acting one must view the films of the Silent Era (up to 1927). The microphone put an end to that kind of acting.
The mike picks up the softest sigh. So actors had to suit their gestures to their voice.
Moreover, the film close-up captures a slight twitch of an eyelash. Boldly "indicating" one's nerves would look ridiculous in a close-up.
This encouraged actors simply to "be." Thus the finest examples of Method Acting can be seen on the screen, including famous American students of the Method such as Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Dustin Hoffman.
But truth in acting need not follow one method. What we now call "Method Acting" are later changes to Stanislavski's method.
There are many schools of Method Acting. What matters is how "truthful" a performance is, not how it was prepared. This requires "faith" (belief) in one's role and truly living it on stage or screen.
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