"I don't believe any thought process is possible without personal experience; that is, every thought is an afterthought, a thought on some matter," Hannah Arendt remarked in an interview on YouTube. I often refer to thought process and life experience on this blog. I made note of the remark especially because it wasn't expressed by an actor or acting coach. I then, for the second time, viewed the 2012 film, Hannah Arendt, because I couldn't recall exactly why I didn't like it initially, and also because it seems that during these last four years I've heard her ideas and writings mentioned often.
Plot, theme, conflict, exposition, progression, actions, climax, and journey of discovery are defined in western dramatic literature as the basic elements of drama; the first known analysis of most of these elements in Aristotle's Poetics. It's the application of these elements that's used by dramatists, directors and actors to tell a story. Except for a few scenes, most of these elements were missing from Hannah Arendt, which makes it an excellent example of error when all the creators involved in a production are unaware of how to apply them and unaware of their absence from the film. The screenwriter, Pamela Katz, wrote episodic scenes of information instead of dramatic conflict. The director, Margarethe von Trotta accepted this construction and did not organize the visual syntax so that it might mitigate this flaw, and the leading actors, with a few exceptions, did not have the skill to turn expository dialogue into actions.
Here are a few examples: an opening scene, below, is expository as it shows us that Mary McCarthy and Hannah Arendt are intimate friends who share details of their private lives. Hannah discovers nothing; she already knows not only her point of view, but doesn't need to think about what she wants to convey; she states, matter-of-factly, conclusions that have no progression in the scene, nor in the rest of the plot; the subject is dropped from the story. The entire scene is expository instead of an exploration of a conflict-ridden dilemma. Actors often come upon expository sentences and need to turn them into actions; it's one of the skills of technique. This scene is an excellent example of error because it's indicated/shown by the writer, director and actors. It is not dramatic.
The following scene doesn't need much said regarding its lack of dramatic structure except that the remark about how Hannah feels about soap operas is unfortunately the substance of the scene itself.
The unique explorations of thought by Hannah Arendt that led to her realizing the banality of evil; its originality of thought processes, of her individual struggles and conflicts - ah, now there's a subject worthy of drama! In the following climactic scene, the scene that should be the highest point of the conflict in which the character's journey of discovery is realized, even when the character is certain of the idea she wants to express, unless she's reading from a prepared lecture, she would need to find the right words to express the thought process from her lived experience, the right words that will make her understood by the disparate members of her audience. As thought-provoking as the ideas were in this scene, it lacked conflict because the actor performed as if her character didn't need to think about how best to convey her thoughts.
Here's a snippet from an interview with Hannah Arendt: please note that even though she knows well what she wants to convey, she must think, she must find a way to reach her interviewer. But in particular, I chose this snippet from a much longer interview because it contains Arendt's remark that she isn't sure she's correct, she's conflicted, she doesn't know if she's right, she has doubts about a certain idea. In the film about an episode from her life that doggedly pursued her for the rest of it, one that continues to be controversial and discussed because of how contemporary it is, none of that process was explored.
