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In every thread, every review, and every conversation we have about movies, inevitably comments will come up about how good/poor the acting in whatever we just saw was. You hear a lot of words describing how it was, ranging from the basic (good, bad, great, terrible, awful, awesome, etc.), to the more in depth (believable, honest, wooden, scene chewing, overacting, disappeared, bored), but how do we know exactly what good and bad acting are? Is there one "school" of acting that's better than others, or is acting something that is down to opinion, same as the general quality of movies? Now, I'm not gonna lay everything I have to say on you all at once, because I'd like to have some material for when this thread is on page three with 4 posts to it's name, but I want to start off with a comment I hear a lot, especially concerning some of my favorite actors. "He Plays Himself In Every Movie": The Michael Cera Story Michael Cera, weird little man he is, has been in the industry now for about 10 years, first starting out in Arrested Development playing a dorky, awkward young man, a good kid who had trouble with girls and people in general, and since then, it feels like we've been seeing him play some variation of George Michael Bluth in every movie since then, only recently, in movies like Magic Magic or This is The End, breaking out of this pattern, but my question is, "Why is that such a bad thing?" There are a lot of actors who fall into this category, even beyond Cera, ranging from character actors to movie stars like Tom Cruise, and arguably, that's what makes them so bankable. But I argue that this consistency is the key that actors like Cera bring to their roles. We know Michael Cera, we know who and what he is, and we know the kind of characters he plays, which is a sort of cinematic shorthand, a way to cue the audience into things the way particular locations, quotes, sounds, or songs can. It also makes it easier to subvert their expectations when someone wants to play them in a role like This is The End, which presents Cera as an incorrigible coke fiend/rear end in a top hat. But this aside, what does this have to do with the quality of the acting job? Not much, I'd argue. Obviously there's not the level of depth and change that performers like Daniel Day Lewis or Jared Leto circa Dallas Buyers Club (who I will delve into in a later post) have, but while playing the same or similar characters seems like a shortcut, I'd say it's much more a way to help an actor delve into their emotions. If you have a well-worn character, you're going to be able to delve into emotions in a way that someone playing a character far off from their own self won't be able to make. In essence, because the transformation into the character is not as strenuous, they're able to give a more realistic performance, and able to touch on feelings they might not be able to reach otherwise. This, like most other things related to judging the quality of acting, is not a 100% truism, because there are certainly actors who play themselves and use this as an opportunity to coast along, collecting a paycheck or just killing time, but I've never understood the complaint about people "acting like themselves", because acting is inherent in the job, and the gift of being able to act "like themselves", but in a different context, is something only a particular brand of actor can utilize. So, I want to know, what tips you off to "good" or "bad" acting? Are you about believability? Transformation? Theatricality? Or are you less concerned about the "how" and more about the end result?
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Jun 6, 2014 07:48
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 04:46 |
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A Word about Transformation, or "gently caress The Oscars" So you want to win the Oscar for Best Actor/Actress, do you? Well, I'm sure you're a very good actor, and absolutely deserve it, but there's one thing you can do to boost your chances like nothing else will: Turn yourself into something else completely. Take for example, Jared Leto, from last year's Dallas Buyers Club. He played a transsexual, he won an Oscar. Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man transformed himself into someone with autism, and was rewarded thusly. Sean Penn played a gay man (this is a transformation in the eyes of the old-rear end voters in the Academy), Jamie Foxx played a blind man, and Daniel Day Lewis has made a career out of hiding himself in his roles. Now, I'm not saying these performances were bad, not by a long shot (some people have argued this about Jared Leto, but I haven't seen the movie, so I'll abstain), but there's that one consistency among these winners, in that they're all playing someone else. It's a degree of difficulty thing. Obviously the best actor is someone who can change themselves like this, right? Nah. Transformation is great and all, but there's a very superficial message to be sent, where if you gussy your face up with makeup, shave your head, lose lots of weight, kiss a dude, or fake a mental illness, you're doing a better/harder job, when in reality, it's not necessarily "harder", just different. Reacting naturally and emoting convincingly are hard, no matter whether you're playing Abraham Lincoln or essentially the same person as you. In short, gently caress The Oscars. There are lots of reasons, generally speaking, but this can be today's.
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Jun 14, 2014 14:41
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