Monday, 1-10-11

Monday, 1-10-11

NB: This blog will to a great extent be a transcription of my Acting Journal for my Acting I class this semester.

Today was my first day of Acting I for the new semester, with Matt Gray teaching my class. We began the day by playing Name-Tag, Matt Gray style of course, which was an interesting experience. Matt noted during play that the basic human tendencies during a high-stress exercise are A) to run, and B) to execute all the rules at once, regardless of relevance, in hopes that one of them will be right. I found I was guilty of both these tendencies on several occasions, often throwing my right arm into the air even when I was not it, running, and shouting someone’s name simultaneously. It took considerable effort on my part to try and keep my feet from running, and then to concentrate on using the rules appropriately instead of all at once. Shortly after that, I was out. But the acting metaphor of the exercise was made apparent. As actors, we can’t run away, and we have to maintain the presence of mind to use the rules and tools of our trade effectively, appropriately, and responsibly. To simply emote is shoddy acting. To simply feel without allowing the audience to have their own experience is amateurish. We can’t retreat from the audience, from our scene-partners, or from the challenges of a particular character or interaction. We must accept defeat along with success, and allow our characters to lose—deeply and completely. I’d like to pretend that these thoughts are mine, but they are mostly just my agreement with Matt’s own explanation Name-Tag.

It was interesting to me that I was one of a very few people who said that what they hated was a behavior commonly found in people. What I said was essentially, “I hate people who refuse to acknowledge the possibility that I might be able to improve myself.” I’m a very driven individual, and a firm believer that very few things are truly out of my grasp if I work for them. There are lot of other things I hate, of course, but this was what came to mind. I have, for as long as I can remember, been told either explicitly or implicitly that I cannot dance, cannot sing, cannot pay attention, cannot throw a punch, and so on. I am working on most of these things. I am getting better. I have not yet been told in so many words that I cannot act, but the atmosphere here is competitive enough that I’ll be doing my best to improve my skill as an actor anyway. I’ll have to.

In class, we also talked about what we needed to work on this semester. Several of my instructors said they wanted to see me “get messy,” which I interpret to mean that I should attempt to eschew the part of me that wants everything to be contained and orderly, to find passion in my work, and to allow that to surprise myself in my preparation. I say in my preparation only because I know that it is not a good idea to try and rely on pure “passion” and “inspiration” to carry you through a performance. All good performance comes from preparation, and it is in the rehearsal stages that experimentation should flourish. Matt told me that there was a huge difference in my work when I warmed up before my Free Scene by shadowboxing and doing push-ups, so I’ll be working on incorporating more physicalized warm-ups and exercises into my rehearsals this year.

I found Matt’s comments on Black Swan today particularly revelatory. He drew a comparison between Black Swan and True Grit, noting that the female protagonists in each movie are vastly different in what their characters say about the power of women. Natalie Portman, who I believe to be a very good actress, plays weakness very well throughout Black Swan, and is altogether dominated and driven mad by the predominantly male or maternal forces in her life. True Grit on the other hand, though I have not yet seen it, presents a very young female character who despite her age accepts nothing less than the greatest of respect from all the men she encounters in the movie. She is strong-willed and effective. Black Swan, while a beautifully shot movie and an interesting story idea, can be said to contribute a negative image of female power.

While my problems with Black Swan almost entirely had to do with the presentation of the story—I thought that the movie missed its opportunity to be a truly heart-breaking tragedy by missing the element of hope and warmth in the earlier half of the movie and thus settled on being a campy psychological thriller—what Matt was saying was that both Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have the clout as actresses to make adjustments if they feel that the message of a particular project is negative, and that in this respect they both acted irresponsibly as performers by participating in a movie that is arguably so misogynistic.

As an actor, I need to begin to formulate an understanding of what I want to say to the world now, so that when I enter the profession I am ready to use the tools of my craft to contribute positive and enlightening knowledge to contemporary culture. All actors should have beliefs and philosophies of their own that they can bring to their work. If they aren’t there, then there work may end up lacking conviction. It seems to me that Natalie Portman may have become trapped playing the idea of weakness, without taking into account the more global ramifications of a female protagonist who is so utterly defeated by the outside forces in her life, without so much as a glimpse of a better path. In some ways, this does get back to my criticism of the movie. If they were making a tragedy, it would have been clear what faults of Portman’s character led to her downfall, and thus the movie would argue against weakness and for an idealized strength of character. Weakness, psychosis, and perfection-crazed delirium would then become the protagonist’s tragic flaws. As it is, it’s not clear to me what the movie was trying to say, if anything. That obsession leads to destruction? Perhaps. The movie isn’t specific or clear enough in revealing its intentions.

A performance I really admire is that of Colin Firth in The King’s Speech. Firth played the stuttering King George VI, but as Firth said in an interview, it wasn’t about playing the stutter, it was about trying desperately not to stutter, and failing. The key difference was that the whole movie is an epic struggle against a whole network of self-consciousness and self-doubts stemming from his speech impediment, and the uplifting end of the movie is made incredibly impactful because of that constant struggle. I left the theater feeling not only inspired, but convinced of the power of people to lead each other in times of violence and horror, to uplift and raise morale in their fellows, and to overcome personal obstacles in the interest of something greater than oneself. These are things worth saying, and the movie couldn’t have done it without Firth’s performance which so clearly showed that he understood these things were at stake. It should be noted that the entire cast was amazing, but Firth particularly impressed me in carrying the role and the movie’s themes.