The Method (Replaces Chapter 5 of your textbook)

METHOD ACTING

A Vocabulary

---

We now focus on ACTING. However, I have decided to replace our textbook's chapter on ACTING with this handout instead. Students may wish to read the chapter in the textbook anyway, but the exam will use this handout, which I think is more useful.

---

    1. Adaptation. Fitting movement, action, or dialogue to inner truth. A husband asking his wife to pass the salt must express the truth of the given circumstances, such as the husband having an affair: "Pass [pause; man thinks to himself about his lover; feeling guilt, he avoids looking at his wife but instead whispers the rest of the sentence to her] me the salt."
    2. As If (Magic If or I AM). The actor asks, "What if" it happened to me?" and experiences the part.
    3. Bit part. A small role.
    4. Blocking. Movement of actors.
    5. Casting. Giving roles to actors based on star image, age, ethnic background, type, or against type.
    6. Character actor. Actor who plays special roles such as doctor, priest, etc.
    7. Characteristic Gesture (Psychological Gesture): A repeated gesture that builds a role.
    8. Concentration. The focus on inner feelings and thoughts.
    9. Emotional (Affective) memory. Using personal memories to be a character and not just play it. To cry on stage for a dead dog the actor remembers when her father died.
    10. Faith. Belief in one's role, which leads to truth in acting.
    11. Film acting. Acting for (and to) the camera, knowing scale (close-ups, long shots), duration of take, angle, and continuity. Film acting is divided into two periods: Silent and Sound. Silent film acting was  theatrical; Sound film acting (1927 on) was more realistic but at first posed problems due to a stationary microphone, which  limited camera movement.
    12. Given Circumstances. The facts of a role: a gangster in the 1920s, not a priest in the 1920s or a gangster in the 1970s.
    13. Image. An unbroken line for a character based on details made up by the actor from the given circumstances of the script, including childhood, walk, hair style, wardrobe, voice, etc.
    14. Indication. Acting an emotion instead of the moment. Such acting is mechanical.
    15. Justification. The moment-to-moment reasons while acting.
    16. Leading actor. Main actor.
    17. Method. A system of finding inner truth in a role.
    18. Moment to Moment. The actor feels truly, so each moment is real and also new.
    19. Motivation. A reason for dialogue or action based on the character's spine or goal.
    20. Preparation. Building a role from its given circumstances and lived experience.
    21. Sense memory. To use the five senses (sight, sound, taste, feel, smell) to live a part.
    22. Spine. The character's main goal or "through line."
    23. Star image. The actor's image based on publicity, promotion, and past films.
    24. Stage acting. A performance continuously presented and scaled  for (and to) a theatre audience.
    25. Star. A bankable actor; the main reason people see movies.
    26. Substitution. To replace a stage object or person with a personal memory.
    27. Subtext. The real meaning of words. "The coffee is cold" may mean, "I no longer love you." "You're okay" may mean, "I love you." The tailor in The Public Enemy is measuring Tom's suit but really flirting with him.
    28. Supporting actor. Actor with a secondary role.
    29. Truth. Real feelings aroused by personal belief in the role.
    30. Type casting. Playing similar roles.

---

An Actor's Comments on Acting: NOT REQUIRED

An Actor's Comments on Acting

---

---

On the star's image:

    "When you see Jack Lemmon at the beginning of a picture walking down the halls of a big office building," he said, "you immediately believe him as a junior executive of a corporation. When you see me on horseback in chain mail, they seem to believe that I belong there."

On being the part:

    When Heston was filming the Moses epic The Ten Commandments, he commented on the restrictions ordered by the director, Cecil B. DeMille:

    "When I'm on the set in my costume and makeup, I cannot sit down, read a newspaper, use a telephone or give interviews. De Mille has twofold purposes: 1. to make others on the set get the illusion I am Moses; and 2. to make me feel like Moses."

On researching the part:

    Heston said that he did a great deal of research on every historical figure he portrayed.

    "The responsibility is a great one," he observed. "After all, Moses figures in three of the world's great religions. You have to be prepared to answer questions of all of them concerning the interpretation of Moses' life."

---

see original article here.

---

Going deeper into Method Acting

GOING DEEPER INTO METHOD ACTING

---

AS WE focus on James Cagney's star image and acting, view this brief clip where Cagney is playing a man imitating a defense lawyer (the actor plays a character who is acting). Notice how stilted (mechanical) his behavior is, in the style of traditional acting (what is called "indicating"). Compare this "performance" with his "natural" acting in The Public Enemy or The Roaring Twenties.
    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.

---

---

The Method (Replaces Chapter 5 of your textbook)

METHOD ACTING

A Vocabulary

---

After next week's class we will focus on ACTING. However, I have decided to replace our textbook's chapter on ACTING with this handout instead. Students may wish to read the chapter in the textbook anyway, but the exam will use this handout, which I think is more useful.

---

    1. Adaptation. Fitting movement, action, or dialogue to inner truth. A husband asking his wife to pass the salt must express the truth of the given circumstances, such as the husband having an affair: "Pass [pause; man thinks to himself about his lover; feeling guilt, he avoids looking at his wife but instead whispers the rest of the sentence to her] me the salt."
    2. As If (Magic If or I AM). The actor asks, "What if" it happened to me?" and experiences the part.
    3. Bit part. A small role.
    4. Blocking. Movement of actors.
    5. Casting. Giving roles to actors based on star image, age, ethnic background, type, or against type.
    6. Character actor. Actor who plays special roles such as doctor, priest, etc.
    7. Characteristic Gesture (Psychological Gesture): A repeated gesture that builds a role.
    8. Concentration. The focus on inner feelings and thoughts.
    9. Emotional (Affective) memory. Using personal memories to be a character and not just play it. To cry on stage for a dead dog the actor remembers when her father died.
    10. Faith. Belief in one's role, which leads to truth in acting.
    11. Film acting. Acting for (and to) the camera, knowing scale (close-ups, long shots), duration of take, angle, and continuity. Film acting is divided into two periods: Silent and Sound. Silent film acting was  theatrical; Sound film acting (1927 on) was more realistic but at first posed problems due to a stationary microphone, which  limited camera movement.
    12. Given Circumstances. The facts of a role: a gangster in the 1920s, not a priest in the 1920s or a gangster in the 1970s.
    13. Image. An unbroken line for a character based on details made up by the actor from the given circumstances of the script, including childhood, walk, hair style, wardrobe, voice, etc.
    14. Indication. Acting an emotion instead of the moment. Such acting is mechanical.
    15. Justification. The moment-to-moment reasons while acting.
    16. Leading actor. Main actor.
    17. Method. A system of finding inner truth in a role.
    18. Moment to Moment. The actor feels truly, so each moment is real and also new.
    19. Motivation. A reason for dialogue or action based on the character's spine or goal.
    20. Preparation. Building a role from its given circumstances and lived experience.
    21. Sense memory. To use the five senses (sight, sound, taste, feel, smell) to live a part.
    22. Spine. The character's main goal or "through line."
    23. Star image. The actor's image based on publicity, promotion, and past films.
    24. Stage acting. A performance continuously presented and scaled  for (and to) a theatre audience.
    25. Star. A bankable actor; the main reason people see movies.
    26. Substitution. To replace a stage object or person with a personal memory.
    27. Subtext. The real meaning of words. "The coffee is cold" may mean, "I no longer love you." "You're okay" may mean, "I love you." The tailor in The Public Enemy is measuring Tom's suit but really flirting with him.
    28. Supporting actor. Actor with a secondary role.
    29. Truth. Real feelings aroused by personal belief in the role.
    30. Type casting. Playing similar roles.

---