Acting and Being
When you come to fiction, you make a deal with the author to "willingly suspend your disbelief." That is, you agree to pretend that what you're reading or watching is real.
With books I can do that; with movies it's harder. When I watch a movie I'm almost always aware of the actors as people who are acting. This is especially true if I've seen the actor in something else, even if he's a good actor: This is Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Hamlet; this is Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Benedick; this is Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Iago.
Because I don't fully suspend my disbelief when I watch movies, I watch people really doing things--and it's disturbing. Oh, yes, I know all about special effects; nobody really kills anybody else in movies. But much of what occurs on film isn't faked. When Demi Moore pretends to be a stripper, she really is stripping. When couples fall passionately into bed, they really are kissing. When Hamlet screams venomously at Ophelia, Kenneth Branagh really is screaming.
Now, I'm not saying actors should never play reprehensible characters. Macbeth is a powerfully moral work, and would not be so without Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. All the same, I wouldn't want to immerse myself in one of those roles day in and day out, for months or even years, as stage actors must do. As Gandalf says to Sauruman, it's dangerous to study too closely the enemy's arts; and as my mother always told me, it's easier to act your way into feeling than to feel your way into acting. Every role is bound to affect the one who wears it. What we do with our bodies affects our souls.
Drama--whether film or theater--is powerful art; and art always requires something of the artist. But I wonder whether, with our insatiable appetite, we expect more from actors than they ought to be willing to give.
I don't know the answer, and I don't have a solution. I'm not ready to trade a Macbeth that is method acted for one where the actors merely go through the motions. Perhaps I should be.
I wonder how first-rate Christian actors have grappled with this.
(See the follow-up posts with comments from readers and actors here, here, and here).
With books I can do that; with movies it's harder. When I watch a movie I'm almost always aware of the actors as people who are acting. This is especially true if I've seen the actor in something else, even if he's a good actor: This is Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Hamlet; this is Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Benedick; this is Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Iago.
Because I don't fully suspend my disbelief when I watch movies, I watch people really doing things--and it's disturbing. Oh, yes, I know all about special effects; nobody really kills anybody else in movies. But much of what occurs on film isn't faked. When Demi Moore pretends to be a stripper, she really is stripping. When couples fall passionately into bed, they really are kissing. When Hamlet screams venomously at Ophelia, Kenneth Branagh really is screaming.
Now, I'm not saying actors should never play reprehensible characters. Macbeth is a powerfully moral work, and would not be so without Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. All the same, I wouldn't want to immerse myself in one of those roles day in and day out, for months or even years, as stage actors must do. As Gandalf says to Sauruman, it's dangerous to study too closely the enemy's arts; and as my mother always told me, it's easier to act your way into feeling than to feel your way into acting. Every role is bound to affect the one who wears it. What we do with our bodies affects our souls.
Drama--whether film or theater--is powerful art; and art always requires something of the artist. But I wonder whether, with our insatiable appetite, we expect more from actors than they ought to be willing to give.
I don't know the answer, and I don't have a solution. I'm not ready to trade a Macbeth that is method acted for one where the actors merely go through the motions. Perhaps I should be.
I wonder how first-rate Christian actors have grappled with this.
(See the follow-up posts with comments from readers and actors here, here, and here).
Labels: Art
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