Playing to the Camera: Film Actors Discuss Their Craft / Edition 1

by Bert Cardullo, Harry Geduld, Ronald Gottesman, Leigh Woods

Overview

Over the last century, film actors from Charlie Chaplin and Lillian Gish to Meryl Streep and Jeff Daniels have spoken about the art and technique of playing to the camera. This fascinating anthology of their "insiders" observations will delight film lovers and aspiring film actors everywhere.

The book has been edited by four leading film and theater historians, who have brought together selections from periodicals and books (some no longer in print), had some statements or conversations translated into English for the first time, and conducted new interviews with working actors. The book is divided into four parts—"The Silent Performance," "Finding a Voice," "European Acting," and "Hollywood Acting"—each of which is introduced by a brief commentary. This chronological and topical structure allows one actor to talk or argue with another as they offer astute—and often contradictory—opinions on a broad range of theoretical concerns. Among the issues they discuss are stage versus screen performance, the spiritual, emotional, and psychological underpinnings of the actor’s art, and the performer’s response to technical demands and other exigencies of filmmaking. The book, which also includes an insightful general introduction, film biographies of the actor-authors, and aptly chosen movie stills, is an essential resource—one that gives us, says Stanley Kauffmann, "the mapping of a new territory in art."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300070514
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	11/10/1999
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

	Foreword	ix
	Preface	xiii
	Introduction	1
Part 1	The Silent Performance	15
	Acting for the Films in 1912	19
	My Autobiography	22
	The "New Art"	28
	Screen Acting	32
	The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me	40
	Dialogue with the Actress	46
Part 2	Finding a Voice	53
	The New Stage Fright: Talking Pictures	57
	Acting in Talking Pictures	65
	What the Public Wants	66
	My Ten Years in the Studios	69
	Lorenzo Goes to Hollywood	74
	The Actor	79
Part 3	European Acting	83
	Stage and Screen: The British	85
	Film Acting	89
	The Film Actor	94
	Mash or Face	98
	Talking About Acting	107
	On Acting	117
	Acting and Ideology: The Soviets	119
	Notes of a Soviet Actor	123
	Stanislavsky's System in the Cinema	130
	Actor's Feeling and Director's Form	138
	Continental Alternatives	146
	Some Notes on Acting	149
	The Actor, a Witness of His Time	152
	The Game of Truth	155
	Conversation with the Actress	157
	Human Masks Are Dangerous	165
Part 4	Hollywood Acting	171
	The Golden Age of the Studios	173
	The Actress Plays Her Part	177
	A Life on Film	185
	The Player: A Profile of an Art	189
	Notes on Film Acting	193
	The Many-Splendored Actor	200
	Reflections on Forty Years of Make-Believe	210
	The Business of Film Acting	220
	Interview with the Actress	223
	Dialogue on Screen Acting	227
	Walking the Hollywood Color Line	232
	When Women Were in the Movies	242
	"Commercial" Isn't a Dirty Word, Any More Than "Comedy"	247
	The Method Revisited and Matters of Style	263
	Conversation with the Actor	267
	The Playboy Interview	275
	Dialogue with the Actor	280
	Interview with the Actor	293
	"The Bird Is on His Own"	302
	"Acting Has to Be About Something Else"	309
	Biographies of Film Actors	327
	Select Bibliography	347
	Index	361

Editorial Reviews

If you're looking for a book to teach you how to become a movie star, don't bother looking here. If, on the other hand, you'd like to learn how certain actors have approached their jobs, you've come to the right place. -- Andrea Higbie, New York Times Book Review

Andrea Higbie

The most underappreciated element of film as an art form (at least in academic film criticism) may well be acting; this collection, by four scholars (three at the University of Michigan, one at the University of Southern California), attempts to redress that imbalance by drawing on the words of those who practice the craft. According to Ronald Gottesman, this volume has been 25 years in the making, no doubt because so few actors of earlier generations have been inclined to intellectualize their profession. Indeed, it may well be that actors are by temperament and inclination not the best people to hold forth on how they do what they do. Certainly, a great deal in this volume suggests as much. The book consists of 42 pieces spanning nearly all of film history, from a reminiscence of acting in a 1912 silent by obscure British actor Charles Graham, to lengthy dialogues with the likes of Jack Nicholson and Robert DeNiro. These contributions are linked together, sometimes rather awkwardly, by Leigh Woods, who attempts to supply historical context for them. Some themes are sounded repeatedly: the difference between stage and screen; the difficulties inherent in working in bits and pieces, as one does in film; the relationship between personality and persona; keeping a perspective on craft after stardom rears its head. Many of the entries contain nuggets of interesting observation. Laurence Olivier offers an intriguing note on how film acting taught him to use his eyes more effectively onstage. Hume Cronyn contributes a useful checklist for building a part. Jack Lemmon compares acting to undergoing psychoanalysis. But much of the volume is tedious, repetitive, or outdated. Acting is aboutcommanding the attention of the audience. This book will lead readersþ attention to stray.

Kirkus Reviews