A few of the concepts from Chapter 3 need a touch more
refinement and clarification before we can begin to use them for describing
and analyzing actual films.
Let’s start with non-linear dramatic structure.
When all the scenes in a film unfold chronologically in time, we are of course
dealing with a linear dramatic structure. Flashbacks to earlier actions or
remembered events are one type of deviation from chronological linearity.
Prophetic flash-forwards are another type of non-linearity. But there are also
several other forms of non-linear structure that filmmakers have invented over
the years. In fact, film critics seem to have a difficult time coming up with
new terms to describe the constant innovations of maverick filmmakers who live
to experiment with non-linear structures. Here are a few of the more
established non-linear structures and the terms most commonly used to describe
them.
Frame Narrative – a story in which a character
tells another story. The “frame narrative” surrounds the “embedded
narrative” and the film will typically cut back and forth between scenes
in the frame narrative and the embedded narrative. One example of this is THE
PRINCESS BRIDE. In the frame narrative, Peter Falk is telling a story to Fred
Savage, his grandson. The film cuts back and forth between this scene and
scenes in the embedded narrative, where Wesly pursues his true love,
Buttercup.
Circular Narrative – a story that somehow ends
back at its own beginning. This happens, for example, in time-travel science
fiction films like 12 MONKEYS. In some films, like GROUNDHOG DAY, time
inexplicably turns backwards so that the protagonist (Bill Murray) must relive
a certain sequence of events over and over again, but with subtle variations
in each repetition.
Parallel Narrative – a story that is made up of
two or more sub-stories that may or may not intersect. The film may tell one
story in its entirety and then cut to the next story (e.g., LOST HIGHWAY) or
it may cut back and forth between stories (e.g., BYE BYE, LOVE).
Refractory Narrative – a story in which a
sequence of events is shown over and over again from multiple points of view.
Kurosawa’s RASHOMON is the paradigm for this type of non-linear structure.
In this film, a murder is committed. We witness this event several times
through the eyes of the victim, his wife, the accused murderer, and a
bystander. In each version, the event unfolds differently. The facts here have
become so colored by the personalities of the witnesses and participants in
the crime that it is impossible to reconstruct the crime objectively. The
truth is inaccessible. All we have are subjective refractions of the actual
event.
These are only a few of the many non-linear dramatic
structures that filmmakers like to experiment with. There are many many more,
and some of them don’t even have conventional labels yet. When you are
dealing with a new or unfamiliar type of non-linear narrative (e.g., PULP
FICTION or MOMENTO) and none of the above labels seem to fit, go ahead and
invent your own label for the film’s dramatic structure and then explain how
this new label is appropriate.
Conflict
When you are describing and analyzing the central and
secondary conflicts in a film, you may find it helpful to consider the
standard types of conflict outlined by traditional narrative theory. These are
Person vs. Person
-- Human confrontations
Person vs. Society
-- Confrontations with laws or cultural norms
Person vs. Him/Herself --
Psychological struggle
Person vs. Nature
-- Disaster and survival stories
There are, of course, many other kinds of conflict as
well. Two that immediately come to mind are Person vs. Technology
(e.g., THE TERMINATOR) and Person vs. The Supernatural (e.g., THE
EXORCIST). In any case, bear in mind that most films present multiple
conflicts. If you set out to analyze this dimension of a film narrative, you
should first identify the central conflict and then discuss how the other,
secondary conflicts relate to or derive from it.
Character Development
Our text describes several different ways in which
characters can be developed (appearance, internal action, leitmotif, etc.). If
you choose to focus on types of characterization in your analysis of a given
film, you should bear in mind that a main character is usually developed by
several of these types. Each type of characterization adds new layers and
nuances to the personality portrayed.
Cosmic Irony
Irony in general is somewhat of a difficult to grasp. In
simplest terms, it refers to a moment when our expectations or our general
understanding of a situation is suddenly undercut by a realization of the
actual state of things. The different types of irony described in our text
pertain to specific film situations in which that kind of undercutting takes
place. All the definitions and descriptions seem somewhat straightforward –
at least to me – except in the case of cosmic irony.
Cosmic irony arises when either characters or the
audience come to expect one of two things, only to have that expectation
suddenly frustrated when the opposite thing appears to be true. On the one
hand, we might be led to believe that there is some cosmic or divine force
(God, Destiny, whatever) controlling the way things turn out here on earth.
Perhaps a lot of things happened to pan out in a certain way, and we
subsequently detected evidence of God’s divine plan in this series of
coincidences. But then suddenly the unexpected happens – something that runs
completely contrary to all expectations in light of this perceived plan. Our
assumptions are thus undercut. Either God does not exist, or else his plan for
us is incoherent (to us). Either way, we are the suckers. We only thought we
had it all figured out.
On the other hand, let’s say that the apparent
randomness of events leads us to believe that things just happen by chance,
that there is no master plan controlling our fate. But then something happens
and suddenly it looks like there is some cosmic force pulling the strings
after all. This too is cosmic irony.
FORREST GUMP provides a good example of this second type
of cosmic irony. When Forrest’s shrimp-fishing efforts are frustrated by the
fact that more experienced fishermen are depleting the waters, Lieutenant Dan
facetiously tells Forrest to ask God for assistance. Forrest then begins
attending church regularly and praying for divine help. Lieutenant Dan, who
believes this is a waste of time, taunts Forrest for his efforts. But suddenly
a storm rises and threatens to sink their shrimp boat. Lieutenant Dan now
appears to reconsider his position on the whole God-thing. Maybe there is a
God after all, but he is apparently a cruel and vindictive God. From high up
in the boat’s rigging, Lieutenant Dan curses and challenges this cruel God
to try and destroy him. We then cut to the next day. The sun is shining and
all of the other shrimp boats – except Forrest’s – have sunk, leaving
all the shrimp in the area for Forrest and Lieutenant Dan to harvest.
Ironically, it seems that Lieutenant Dan’s sarcastic suggestion that Forrest
ask God for help actually paid off – but in a wildly unexpected way.
Study
Guide for Chapter Ten (Acting)
Action acting vs dramatic acting
Reaction shot
Impersonators vs. Interpreters
Personality actors
Acting from the inside out
Acting from the outside in
The star system
Ensemble acting
typecasting
In this chapter, Boggs and Petrie eventually present us
with a classification of acting styles that they borrow from another book (A
PRIMER FOR PLAYGOERS). Actors are here classified as being either
Impersonators, Interpreters (or Commentators), or Personality actors. While
this system of classification has the virtue of being easy to grasp, it lacks
the precision and sophistication of the more conventional breakdown of acting
styles with which our authors had initially begun the chapter.
In the first few pages of Chapter 10, Boggs and Petrie
discuss two different schools of acting: the Stanislavski school of
“method acting” and the British school of “technical acting.”
These schools roughly correspond to the Impersonator and Interpreter
categories of actor. So for clarity’s sake, let’s redraw the
classification of acting styles in the manner that Boggs and Petrie initially
started to draw it.
There is method acting, technical acting, personality
acting, and one other style that the authors describe but never quite
label, character acting.
Method Acting (Impersonating)
The Soviet theatrical director, Konstantin Stanislavski,
developed this style of acting just after the turn of the last century. It was
originally called “the Stanislavski method,” but was later shortened to
simply “method.” The style was imported to the US in 1947 when Lee
Strasberg and Elia Kazan opened The Actors Studio in New York and began to
teach Stanislavski’s method to a crop of actors who would then bring it to
Hollywood. Some of these actors were Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Robert De
Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Joanne Woodward, and Meryl Streep.
In this style of acting, the actor attempts to BECOME the
character – that is, they try to psychologically channel that character’s
identity into their body – effectively switching identities with the
character. How do they do this? As Boggs and Petrie explain, these actors
approach the character from the inside out. That is, they imagine that the
character is a real person and then proceed to psychoanalyze that person to
discover his or her innermost passions and fears. Then the method actor will
foist these alien passions and fears upon his or her own psyche. (No wonder so
many actors are neurotic!). There are specific techniques that the method
actor will use to accomplish this transformation. Here I will only touch on
one such technique, one that is perhaps most characteristic of the style.
Establishing the backstory of a character. A
method actor begins the transformation process by researching or inventing the
biography of their character, recreating their lives before the events of the
film take place. The method actor will then mentally “live through” all
the character’s earlier experiences, picking up their secret emotional
dirves and psychological complexes along the way.
Mark Wahlberg used the technique of establishing the
backstory in order to “discover” his character for the fact-based film THE
PERFECT STORM. Several weeks prior to filming, he went to the New England
fishing town his character had grown up in and, so I’ve heard, actually
rented the very room that his real-life counterpart had lived in. For weeks,
he visited the bars his character had frequented and spoke with all of this
person’s surviving friends and relatives. He actually began to live his
character’s life for him. After several weeks of this, Wahlberg delivered a
remarkably believable performance – a triumph of method acting.
Here are three of the more noticeable traits of a method
actor
a)
Emphasis on emotion over elocution. Take Brando for instance: often
it’s hard to hear exactly what his characters are saying because they
mumble. But we always know that their feelings are intense. Despite the fact
that Brando is sometimes barely understandable, he always delivers a powerful,
emotionally driven performance.
b)
Improvisational style of delivery. You get a clear sense that the actor
is “living the scene.” Gestures and certain remarks seem spontaneous and
natural, not calculated and rehearsed. The spoken lines and gestures are
sometimes halting or jerky, but somehow this makes them all the more
believable. In real life, people are seldom as poised, graceful, or articulate
as they are in the movies.
c)
Ability to alter outward appearance to fit into a role. As Boggs and
Petrie note, Robert De Niro is the hands-down champion of this technique. Over
the Course of RAGING BULL the actor went from being a thin and sinewy young
boxer to a puffy and overweight middle-aged man in retirement. (De Niro gained
60 pounds during filming so he could continue to “feel the part” in the
film’s final sequences).
Technical Acting (Interpreting)
This style arose among British screen actors who had been
trained and drilled in the classical theater of the stage. Some of the bigger
names associated with this style are Alec Guinness, Emma Thompson, Vanessa
Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence Olivier, and Kenneth Branaugh.
Having discussed method acting at length makes a
discussion of technical acting much easier. To sum it us, technical acting is
very nearly the opposite of method acting. Where method actors are said to go
from the inside out, technical actors go from the outside in. That is, they
start by focusing on appearances and speaking styles of the character. They
carefully rehearse each tiny gesture and the pronunciation of each line, over
and over again prior to filming. Because of their extensive theatrical
experience, they typically have a wider range than method actors (who simply
can’t “find” certain characters). Over years of training, they amass a
great many tricks and gimmicks of the trade so that they can immediately
launch into the speech patterns and mannerisms of, say, a drunken wife who is
trying to hide her state from her oblivious spouse. The technical actress here
would not need to reconstruct a backstory or worry about deeper
“motivation.” She would simply lift the speech and behavior from another
role, or from her observations of people in similar situations in real life.
Contrary to what one might expect, the performance of
technical actors is not necessarily more shallow that that of method actors.
After all, technical actors do eventually move from the outside of their
charcters in over the course of a role. The actions, mannerisms, and
intonations of their delivery retroactively tend to esbablish the inner live
of the character. Thus the actor discovers this inner life in the same way
that the audience does: by watching how the character looks and behaves as the
story unfolds.
Here are some of the more noticeable traits of a
technical actor. Note how they are the opposite of those characterizing a
method actor.
a)
Emphasis on precise, measured delivery while emotions are restrained.
For technical actors, emotions are a subtle business best handled with
restraint until the story seems to call for an outburst. Instead of gushing or
seething, these actors will perfect their gestures and intonations so as to
give more subtle, yet clearer, indications of their emotional state.
Anthony Hopkins gave us a tour de force
performance in technical acting with his academy award winning portrayal of
Hannibal Lecktor in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. His carefully pronounced
delivery of lines with a restrained, condescending lilt and his extremely
self-conscious bolily gestures made for a positively chilling screen
encounter. “Hello, Clarice.”
b)
Extremely rehearsed delivery. No real spontaneity is expected here.
Every nuance of the performance is calculated and practiced. From the film
critic’s perspective, this makes the films more viewer-friendly. Since every
aspect of the performance is deliberate and clearly executed, these aspects
are easier to note and interpret.
c)
The role is suited to fit the actor rather than vice versa. Rather than
turning themselves literally into their characters, technical actors are more
apt to take liberties and reshape the character to suit their strengths as an
actor. Note how Hopkins subtly altered the role of Hannibal Lecktor with
respect to another actor’s prior performance of the role (in the film
MANHUNTER). Hopkins’ portrayal conveys a clearer sense of the character’s
diabolical glee behind a veneer of restraint. He thereby subtly alters the
character a bit so as to capitalize on his unique ability to create layers of
emotion and depth in his roles. This ability is even more evident in
Hopkins’ brilliant performances in HOWARD’S END and REMAINS OF THE DAY.
Personality Acting
This style of acting was born out of the Hollywood star
system. That is to say, it essentially grew out of a marketing strategy. But
this doesn’t mean that there isn’t an art to it.
In simplest terms, a personality actor plays pretty much
themselves in every role. Or to be more precise, they project elements of
their off-screen, media-hyped personality into all their performances. Thus
their roles seem to be extensions of their own lives. But sometimes the
off-screen persona is as fictional in nature as the screen-roles a given actor
will play. Take Joan Crawford’s “Glamour Queen” persona. It’s pure
media hype. The fact is that Joan Crawford grew up in abject poverty and never
had the opportunity to attend high school. That aura of easy nonchalance and
urbane sophistication she projects is pure Hollywood movie magic. In real
life, Joan was always insecure about her shortcomings. And then there’s John
Wayne, probably the best known, most successful personality actor to survive
the decline of the studio era. On-screen and off, he carefully crafted a
public image that endures today. This is not to say that his private character
contradicted his public persona. Rather he (and his publicists and producers)
carefully selected certain traits to embellish and certain traits to obscure.
That’s how legends are made in Hollywood.
Character Acting
Character actors are, for the most part, the most under
appreciated artists in the industry. Like personality actors, they specialize
in just one type of role. However unlike personality actors, they seldom
attain star status. Usually they live out their careers playing supporting
roles – often brilliantly. Since their range is so restricted, they tend to
refine and develop their roles to a remarkable degree. Occasionally they do
reach star status and become well known personality actors (e.g., Keanu
Reeves, whose innocent and bewildered character-specialty eventually drove him
into the spotlight. Woah!). Sometime such luck character actors will
subsequently even manage to increase their range and play a wider variety of
roles (e.g., Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise).