Method Acting

[charliechaplinfan]

I don't think we've ever had a thread about method acting as such. I first came across the method school of acting when reading about Marilyn Monroe as a teen and that whetted my appetite for the world of film.

The next thing I read was that three people brought method acting to Hollywood, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando and James Dean. The more I read about the film world I found that many of the '50's and '60's actors onwards have graduated or been trained in that way.

Then I read a little deeper and discover that it was Stella Adler who was Marlon's teacher, Montgomery Clift seemed to have his own unique way of creating characters. Lee Strasberg's actors studio was not the same as Stella's teaching and not pure Stanislavsky. Then there was the Group Theatre, Elia Kazan etc. Am I the only one who gets confused when trying to unravel who taught what to who and exactly what did they teach?

Marilyn was Lee Strasberg's most famous student but did it really help her acting or did it make her even more paranoid?

I can see that with the introduction of actors like Marlon and Montgomery Clift, trained on Broadway, it was like a breath of fresh air but was that down to them as people or the craft they brought with them? And what came first, the emergence of 'method acting' on screen or the establishment of a studio where actors could learn their craft.

Finally, are you a fan of method acting and actors?

[jdb1]

Alison, I believe the technique came first, based in part upon the methods of the Russian Stanislavsky. Many of the Left-leaning acting companies of the 1930s and 40s used a version of that technique, which was re-worked by Lee Strasberg and other teachers into what we now know as The Method.

As for Method acting itself -- I like good acting, and I don't really care how the actor arrived at his/her performance. It's the bad acting, purportedly using Method acting practices, that gives this technique its bad reputation.

As a sidelight -- last Sunday I saw the Bollywood film Ghajini, starring Aamir Khan (he's an amnesiac millionaire who has written notes to himself so that he can track down and kill the killer of his girlfriend). It was the usual mixed Bollywood bag, with drama and the requisite singing and dancing, but Khan was remarkable. I've read that he is a Method actor, and his work in the really pretty scary dramatic sections of this movie was fantastic. I didn't realize that this charming actor, who I know only from light comedies and musicals (and who is one of the few Indian actors who usually does his own singing), could be so intense. If that's what the Method can do for an actor, I'm all for it.

[charliechaplinfan]

I agree with you about good acting, there was plenty of it around in Hollywood long before anyone had heard of Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Group Theatre or the method.

Someone like Montgomery Clift, I use him because I've watched Wild River tonight, directed by Elia Kazan with Lee Remick and Jo Van Fleet. The film was perfect and the performances, in the main part so understated, especially by Clift, it made the whole picture very powerful. Montgomery Clift inspired other actors to better their performances and helped other actors to achieve it. Perhaps it's just a case that someone comes a long with a fresh way of looking at something, people see it working and use it themselves.

As for understated acting, I know Gary Cooper and others had been practicing it for years.

[mrsl]

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I too, don't care how an actor gets to his portrayal but, take a movie like From Here to Eternity. You have Burt Lancaster who came up the hard way, playing bit parts, then small talking parts, then finally larger until he was the star who had to be dramatic, romantic, tough, and understanding all in one film. Also there is Monty Clift, doing basically the same kinds of emoting. I don't see a difference in either of them, nor how they got to the place they could play the romantic, or the tough guy. Personally, I think method acting is a lot of hooey. An actor needs what all people need on a new job, training, learning the ropes, and obeying the rules. I know the studio system that basically owned you was not the best, but it was the best for helping a young person to become an actor if that's what he dreamed of being.
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[charliechaplinfan]

There have been so many instance were method actors have disrupted others, either by making them wait whilst they get into character or demanding retakes.

Many of my favorite actors aren't method actors, just very good screen actors who learnt their trade through the studio system and I wouldn't want them any other way. Yet I can't help feeling that performances like the good ones Brando made and Montgomery Clift's films and others, were a breath of fresh air, different, more sensitive (OK Stanley Kowalski wasn't sensitive) a change.

I still don't completely understand the method though.

[jdb1]

I think the point has been made here -- good acting is good acting. I don't really doubt that any of the Method proponents could probably have turned in just as good a performance using a more standard, less rarified style; if you can act, you can act, no matter how you get there.

Think of someone like Walter Brennan, who was so versatile -- he could be funny, ornery or heartbreaking, and you believe every minute of it. And I remember Lillian Gish on the subject of the Method: "Who needs it? Don't you have an imagination?" I can't picture someone as good as James Cagney consciously using Method techniques -- he thought about the character and he was the character, period -- no fuss, no muss.

I think the question lies in what the actor believes he is using to get into character -- some like to "play-act," some like to "be" the character, and some probably couldn't put what they do into words.

[charliechaplinfan]

Isn't it true of many things that some of us feel are instinctive, if we thought too deeply about them we probably wouldn't be able to do the thing as well.

I'm told I'm a natural people person, I've always worked on the frontline, in sales and service and enjoyed it and been successful but send me on a course were instructors try to break down what I do, analyse it and package it into their tried and tested formula, then I can't do it, I'm hopeless and then I'm self conscious and my performance suffers but for some people that approach brings the success because they then understand each step.