A student expressed interest in why I said "films," plural, regarding Noah Baumbach's work in the post titled Character or Caricature? Laura Dern - Marriage Story. Admittedly, I haven't seen all of his films, but I have seen quite a few, since I like his screenplays and his visual syntax very much. Okay, recall that in my other post titled Scarlett Johansson - Innate Talent Without Technique - Pitfalls - Marriage Story, I noted the discrepancy between correct instinctive performance and absence of technique where the actor mistakenly performs narratively rather than dramatically. I noticed the error of narrative performance in The Meyerwitz Stories as well. These two scenes are performed narratively; Marriage Story from the blog post as reference (above), and from The Meyerwitz Stories (below):
The reason I said there are excellent performances alongside drastic errors in Mr. Baumbach's films: In Marriage Story, Alan Alda's performance was exemplary, as was Ray Liotta's performance. Adam Driver performed beautifully in his scenes with those two actors and also in his scenes with Azhy Robertson. However, the pitfalls I described that occur when an actor relies on instinct rather than using the tools of technique, occurred particularly in his scenes with Ms. Johansson. When she worked correctly, so did he, but, for example, in the climactic argument scene, because it was performed correctly in certain moments then moved in and out of narrative exposition, I think she derailed him, and ironically, his character's note to her in the beginning of the film that she was pushing for emotion is what actually happened to both of them in that well-written argument scene.
The reason I said there are excellent performances alongside drastic errors in Mr. Baumbach's films: In Marriage Story, Alan Alda's performance was exemplary, as was Ray Liotta's performance. Adam Driver performed beautifully in his scenes with those two actors and also in his scenes with Azhy Robertson. However, the pitfalls I described that occur when an actor relies on instinct rather than using the tools of technique, occurred particularly in his scenes with Ms. Johansson. When she worked correctly, so did he, but, for example, in the climactic argument scene, because it was performed correctly in certain moments then moved in and out of narrative exposition, I think she derailed him, and ironically, his character's note to her in the beginning of the film that she was pushing for emotion is what actually happened to both of them in that well-written argument scene.
Here's a sample of the excellent performances of Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller in The Meyerwitz Stories. This scene is near the end of the film. I included a snippet of the prior fight scene in order to note the characters' previous circumstances. Please see the film and note the excellent creation of character through the arc of the drama, attention to the rising action, correct focus on the needs of the character -- journey of discovery -- by both of these excellent actors:
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