Glenn Close - Not a "Method" Actor?

It was a pleasure to watch Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce perform such an articulate duet in The Wife; exquisite counterpoint and harmony; musical terms, yes, but that's what their work reminded me of.

In her January 21, 2019 interview in The Guardian, Ms. Close discussed that film and some of her other performances.  In her remarks about the character Joan in The Wife, she mentioned her mother:  “I didn’t channel her. Although of course I had seen her taking the back seat to my father my whole life, so it was in my DNA. I had a well of subliminal experience to draw on.” Regarding the character's ideas, POV:  "It's not that they hadn’t been expressed before, but I guess they resonate in this moment. For that whole generation, pre-feminism, that’s the way it was. That was the norm. It’s caused me to look back at my two grandmothers, who were basically unfulfilled women. One had this beautiful singing voice and she wasn’t allowed to pursue that. My other grandmother, whose wedding ring I’m wearing throughout this awards season, dreamed of being an actress.”  She then revealed that it was this latter grandmother who inspired her 1982 performance of Jenny Fields in The World According to Garp.

Further in the interview, Ms. Close remarked, "I'm so glad to do what I do because even though I’m not a method actor and I don’t use my life in my acting, my work is still a progression."

I hope that my students and readers can easily recognize the continuing confusion that Adler and Strasberg initiated and that is dogmatically followed by their disciples so that even a seasoned, talented actor will contradict herself, in one conversation!

Reminder:  The word "Method" was coined by Strasberg.  Stanislavsky referred to it as a "System."  To conflate Strasberg's POV with Stanislavsky's POV is incorrect.  And to differentiate between substitution/affective memory and imagination?  Still?  Ms. Close didn't live the life of her mother or her grandmothers, but weren't their lives carved into her lived experience?  Her grandma's wedding ring answers that question.

BTW, in this interview Ms. Close addressed an aspect of my discussion regarding Amy Adams's error in Sharp Objects when she discussed her role in Fatal Attraction.  She said, “I had so many secrets as Alex.  The woman I was playing was not the same one who was perceived by the public. But I didn’t have the dialogue or the scenes to illuminate her backstory (my italics).  If you did Fatal Attraction from Alex’s point of view, she would be a tragic person, not a dangerous, evil one.” Ms. Close, in her performance in Fatal Attraction correctly played the actions/needs of the character, cognizant of the character's inner life, which she referred to here as Alex's secrets.

"Do You Use Substitution or Imagination,"

Emma Stone asked Timothée Chalamet during a recent discussion on Variety Studio: Actors on Actors.  To the best of my recollection, his answer was vague and I don't recall what he said.  If someone remembers his answer, please tell me.  Regardless, the odd separation between substitution and imagination that has been carried forward all these years by the students of Adler and Strasberg, and then by their students' students has become some sort of meaningless mantra, and should indeed lead to vague answers when asked if one uses one or the other.

We are the sum total of our life experience, which includes incidents we've personally experienced and those we've read or heard about, all of which become memory.  Some incidents, either directly experienced or learned indirectly will resonate for us when we encounter analogous circumstances  while others will not.  I vividly recall a remark from Uta Hagen when she told my class that there are many characters each of us can play.  She reached her arm behind her and dangled her hand up and down from her wrist, and I could see the lineup she was indicating of all those characters behind her.  Then she said that as well, there were characters we couldn't perform either yet or ever, depending on our life experience.

I think that if the actor plunges directly into the actions of the character, that actor will very soon discover the extent to which the character's needs resonate.  It will either be conscious or subconscious, but the analogy will be there.  Remember Robert Lewis's observation that it isn't necessary to consciously know what specific incident from one's own experience resonates.  I've personally experienced that he was correct, and have worked with many actors who, in the beginning of rehearsal are clueless why they understand the need of the character, and then, as we work, they remember incidents sometimes uncannily similar or strongly analogous to what they already know about their character's needs.

We don't know what we don't know, and we can't imagine what we don't know, but we do know what we know!  Our imagination is derived from our life experience.  You don't ever forget anything that has happened to you, Stella Adler said -- I just can't remember if I read it, or heard her say it in one of her lectures on YouTube.

The Amy Adams Approach to Sharp Objects

In my 7/20/18 post, "'Dramas are Too Quiet'" AKA Where's the Actor's Technique?" I had responded to Kathryn VanArendonk's discussion of Sharp Objects in the 7/18 edition of Vulture magazine.  Ms. VanArendonk had complained that she couldn't hear all of the dialogue.  She went on to say, "I'll admit that this is a cranky, cantankerous objection, and it's also a massive self-own.  ("I love this show but I can't hear anything they say!" the ancient, belligerent woman yelled online.)  It's an even bigger self-own for someone who may have, perhaps, complained about TV being (literally) too dark.  But the dialogue on Sharp Objects is occasionally so inaudible that it's a very real distraction from an otherwise gorgeous show.  It's time to talk about this problem!"

Further in the article she commented on a particular scene in the show that I chose to address in my 7/20/18 post.  I wrote, "Ms. VanArendonk mentioned a telephone exchange that Amy Adams performed.  I didn't go back to watch it, but am certain that Ms. Adams did not examine carefully, for that scene, what made her say each thought.  It's my opinion that Ms. Adams understands her characters very well in many of her performances.  Her work in Doubt, for example, was luminous.  What a pleasure it was to be taken for a secure ride with the lead actors of that film!  However, in Sharp Objects, I think she hasn't sharpened the actions of each sentence; she has worked on the inner life of the character and is showing it.  But the character utters ideas/needs in order to survive, to get a grip on her relationship to her environment, and each sentence she utters is progressive toward the journey of discovery she has undertaken. "What need is making me say this sentence?"   We would hear the ideas of each sentence with clarity if Ms. Adams had done this preparatory work."

Recently, Backstage published a 12/5/18 article, The Amy Adams Approach written by Jenna Marotta, in which Ms. Adams discussed her performance in Sharp Objects and clarified for me why, in my opinion, she performed incorrectly.  In her discussion of her preparations for the role, Ms. Adams stated that the director, Jean-Marc Vallée was against the use of voiceover, “so it was really important to me to be able to communicate her inner monologue just through acting.  There’s a sadness and an intensity about her, but she’s also very raw and very vulnerable, and also very compassionate, like strangely compassionate.”  This is the error I perceived when I watched her performance.

Although many actors might be able to define the inner monologue correctly, its use in English is a translation from Russian, and, I've heard, is still used in acting classes at MAT.  But what Vakhtangov meant by inner monologue was thought/images. (The story I learned was that Vakhtangov insisted to Stanislavsky that that this must be practiced; it doesn't matter to me whose realization it was - some of us might think it's very important, I don't.)  Inner monologue suggests complete, clear, consecutive sentences.  But thought isn't like that. It's kaleidoscopic, isn't it?  How can an actor perform the kaleidoscopic inner thoughts/images of a character? 

Well, one can't act a thought; one can't "communicate" the inner life of the character except through action.  It's the action, the objective, the "what do I want to do?", the need (I like Kim Stanley's idea to use need; it's stronger), in short, one can only act a verb; not a noun or adjective, and certainly not a feeling or emotion.  I realize I'm going over familiar ground, but look how easily very talented actors can fall into the trap of trying to compensate for the decision of a director.

I

Thought Without Language

  

Once again, regarding my 10/2/17 post, "Don't Open Your Mouth Until You Know What Image is Driving the Thought".  All humans constantly, consciously, think about something while awake.  When actors are living their life or performing an improvisation, they're also always thinking.  For some reason, they seem to omit thought when performing text.  Conclusion:  The only humans who omit thought from language are actors.

"Dramas are Too Quiet" AKA Where's the Actor's Technique?

If the actor chooses an action/objective for each and every sentence, comprehends that it's necessary to make one's partner see the image/thought in one's eye, regardless of where the mike is, regardless of the director's talent or lack thereof, the sound engineer's talent or lack thereof, that sentence, the idea of that sentence will be heard. 

If the actor has been trained to do that, and doesn't do it, or doesn't recognize that it's necessary to do it, but relies merely on their talent, then we will hear words, some comprehensible, some not, but we won't know the idea of the sentence.  Many talented actors fall into this bad habit.  I'm singling out Eliza Scanlen, who plays Amma Crellin in HBO's Sharp Objects, because at least one of her scenes in that series is mentioned in Ms. VanArendonk's review in Vulture (see link below) and I saw the scene.  Ms. Scanlen's performance, so far, suffers from her innate talent which relies on instinct and the decision, made in advance, of how she wants to say the sentence, of the resulting mood or feeling of the sentence.  The  performance delivers indicated acting, and a lot of elbow-jabbing in the audience with audible "what did she say?"

Ms. VanArendonk mentioned a telephone exchange that Amy Adams performed.  I didn't go back to watch it, but am certain that Ms. Adams did not examine carefully, for that scene, what made her say each thought.  It's my opinion that Ms. Adams understands her characters very well in many of her performances.  Her work in Doubt, for example, was luminous.  What a pleasure it was to be taken for a secure ride with the lead actors of that film!  However, in Sharp Objects, I think she hasn't sharpened the actions of each sentence; she has worked on the inner life of the character and is showing it.  But the character utters ideas/needs in order to survive, to get a grip on her relationship to her environment, and each sentence she utters is progressive toward the journey of discovery she has undertaken. "What need is making me say this sentence?"   We would hear the ideas of each sentence with clarity if Ms. Adams had done this preparatory work.

http://www.vulture.com/2018/07/tv-dramas-are-too-quiet.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/04/bbc-should-face-investigation-incoherent-mumbling-prime-time/

https://spectator.com.au/2017/03/no-mumbling-allowed/

Dianne Wiest and Judy Garland: Talent and Technique

I've randomly chosen Dianne Wiest and Judy Garland to exemplify what I mean when I say that talent is a variable whereas technique is not.

What is talent?  It's been defined as having a dramatic instinct, depth of imagination, and other generalizations.  I agree, but more precisely, I think that a talented actor is one who's extremely empathic, and even more precisely, it's an actor who, with every sentence they utter has a thought, image, that forces that utterance from an intention.

 I recently saw Judy Garland's performance in A Star is Born.  I was impressed by the scene I've chosen, unaware that it's considered a famous scene from that performance.  I think that Judy Garland was one of those natural (genius?) actors who, by instinct, perform correctly.  It didn't matter whether she was singing or acting; she always uttered a sentence that emanated from a thought.

Dianne Wiest is a talented actor.  It's my impression that she doesn't use technique, but relies on her instincts, which are often reliable.  From In Treatment, the 2008 HBO series, she performed a clear need (aka action/objective).  In particular, when she described standing over the grave of her husband, she definitely saw an image in her mind's eye.  I'd like to point out that neither Adler nor Strasberg would have been able to discern whether she used an image from her own life experience or if she imagined it, but that she saw it is indisputable and her cognition of the image and describing it is what produced an honest emotion.

However, in the 2006 autobiographical film written and directed by Dito Monteil, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, she apparently didn't decide upon an action, which, according to her lines, seemed to be the need to convince her son that his father loves him.  It's the end of the story.  Her character barely expressed herself throughout the film.  She had called her son, who had left home some 20 years prior, to come home for his father's sake, and as soon as her son arrived, his father kicked him out of the house.  Why didn't she decide what her action (verb) needed to be for the overall arc of the scene? And then what thought/image would drive each sentence?  The first sentence she uttered about Antonio doesn't seem related to her overall action.  So, why does her character need to say it?  Why does she continue to talk about Antonio in the beginning of the scene?  She then says, "Look how nice it is now." Both actions  seem to be a need to find a way to begin, don't they?  She must really take in that apartment building behind her that floods her memory of Antonio when he was a boy and she must take in the environment, especially if her character comments on it.  Is it too warm for wearing her sweater?  When she does summon the courage related to the reason she came outside in the first place, everything she talks about is related to past memories.  What are those?  Images, anecdotes from the past; each of which the actor needed to create and summon in order to convince her son that his father loves him. What are those images from so long ago, on this hill -- her husband running after Dito with a forgotten lunch?  A jacket?  Dito says one word: "Sorry."  Didn't she hear him say it?  Is it because he said "sorry," that she summons the courage to admonish him with, "You can't come back with hatred for your father?" If not, then what is the need that drove that sentence?  Then:  New Thought:  "How could you love him in that book and not see him for so long," scolding her grown son took a lot of courage from this quiet woman.  Then, "I know you have your reasons," exposes another new thought, an empathic awareness of her son's POV, memory of her husband's behavior from her son's perspective.  What prompts that new thought?  It could be many things, but surely an obvious one, a memory of a hurt expression on his face when he was a boy.  Now he's a man.  How has he aged?  Has he put on weight, lost weight?  He wears a beard; what does she think of the beard?  "....look at you...you're a man now...good to look at you."  Her son put his hand on hers; Ms. Wiest had no reaction to that physical gesture.  That gesture, coming from her son, whom she hadn't seen in 20 years, communicating that he understood what she was trying to convey, was the climax of the scene!  It's possible that Robert Downey, Jr. didn't make that gesture in other takes.  Nevertheless, if Ms. Wiest had been thinking the thoughts of the character, she would have reacted to the gesture.  The cumulative result of the error of not using technique renders a descriptive rather than a dramatic performance.  Here's the scene:

I've written elsewhere on this blog about Marlon Brando and the anecdote about Stella Adler.  Brando was a good example of someone, who once he learned, analyzed, what he instinctively knew, always applied the technique to his work.  Technique can never get in the way of talent, it can only enhance it.

Imagination/Affective Memory

Stella Adler discussed somewhere, in great detail, the front door of the house in which Nora (A Doll's House) lived with her family.  I think you can find it on YouTube.  Imagine if you were creating a character who lived in New York City or other major cities during 1911 or 1929, and what the sounds of the street were like and how they would impact your character's behavior.  We live in a particular environment in relation to the objects in that environment.

The Adler/Strasberg disagreement, discussed elsewhere on this blog, consisted of the isolation between the actor's personal, lived experience and what the actor has learned, but not directly experienced.  However, isn't the imagination derived from the actor's total lived experience?  That is, once you've studied the above clip, that environment is etched forever in your mind, and you can go back to it whenever you wish.  What you learn becomes part of your total lived experience.  Everything we think about is derived from something we already know.