Aim your stick, not the cue ball.
Gemine Lentine
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Direct the play, not the players.
Dana Bate
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Hello Sandy
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I wonder how many things don't get done or get done in a slip shod and sloppy manner because the doer started out with the wrong idea. There is a tendency among otherwise intelligent people to ga after an effect rather than investigating and performing the cause that brings on the effect.
Think of an aspiring rock guitarist who wants to sound like Eric Clapton. He listens to Clapton records and does his best to mimic what he hears. And maybe he does well at mimicry, but in the meantime he hasn't really learned how to play the guitar, which if he did could come up with his own sound and wouldn't have to imitate anyone.
I have auditioned with actors who had a perfectly fine speaking voice but as soon as they were presented with a script started to sound like Marlon Brando. And some women wanted to be Katherine Hepburn.
I had the unfortunate experience one hour of performing a scene for an NYU Film School directing class. I don't know if the teacher was just playing a stupid game with the class or if he really didn't know what he was talking about. I tend to think it was the latter, And the reason I think so is that I have worked with young folks fresh out of a school somewhere who have wrong and useless ideas which they learned and have to unlearn quickly if they wish to keep working..
An actor makes a choice based on his understanding of the play and the character. He acts on that choice. If a good director doesn't see and hear what he wants he will ask for a different choice, or suggest one, if he has the imagination for it. A bad director will criticize the performing of the scene without knowing the choice, which causes a lot if misunderstanding and wastes a lot of time. Going for effect instead of cause is a big mistake. Some people won't learn that lesson.
There's a story my own director/teacher told me about his teacher, Maria Ouspenskaya. She was working on a scene with an actor and the director was giving her a lot of confusing notes. Finally she said "Do I want him, or don't I want him?" The director said "You want him." "OK" she said and played the scene the way the director wanted.
We should never be blamed for missing the target. We should only be blamed for not aiming at it.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Showing posts with label Marlon Brando. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marlon Brando. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Hiding Harvest 3/17/09
No one wants to know how clever you are. They don't want an insight into your mind, thrilling as it may be. They want an insight into their own.
Mark Haddon
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Top o' the mornin' to you.
_______________________
Aeschylus, if you don't know him, was an ancient Greek playwright. He wrote great tragedies filled with poetry and drama. The world is blessed that some of his plays survive. Many years ago there was a cartoon in The New Yorker of two men in togas at an ancient theatre, standing and talking during intermission. And one says to the other "Oh, Aeschylus is all right, I suppose, but I go to the theatre to relax."
There are many reasons why people go to the theatre or to a concert or an art museum or read a novel. Relaxation may be one of them, but the really great works of art will make you think, maybe not at the moment, but eventually. A true artist knows he has to leave something for the audience member, the viewer, the listener, the reader, to do. When I first started painting I thought I had to completely fill up the canvas with details, until I saw some of the more interesting works by artists like Picasso and Braque. As a viewer I was being asked, no told, to supply information that seemed to be missing. In bookkeeping and other such precision tasks one has to dot every I and cross every T, but not in art.
A good story will leave it up to you to decide certain things from your own knowledge and imagination, if you've been following the story. There is more to the music than the musician plays.
In theatre there is something called "mysteries," but not mysteries in the detective story sense. The playwright doesn't tell the actor everything about the character. It is up to the actor, from his imagination and knowledge of acting and of the play, to fill in details. And at the same time we, as actors, don't give you all the details. We withhold some thoughts, feelings and expressions. We give you 75 to 90%, depending on the play, and let you construct the rest. Next time you see a film or TV drama notice if you are wondering what some character is thinking or feeling. If it's a good performance, with a good script you may not be told. Watch Marlon Brando in almost any film but particularly Mutiny On The Bounty. Every time I watch the film I'm fascinated by what his character is thinking and how he arrives at the decisions he makes.
Look at some delicate Japanese art. There may be a tree and a bridge with a mountain in the background. How you get from the bridge to the mountain is up to you.
Shakespeare, the great and unfathomable, sometimes invites you in to build the drama for yourself. In Henry the Fifth one character says to the audience "Think when we talk of horses that you see them printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth." He tells us to participate in the performance. There will be no horses on the stage, so we had better supply them.
Good artists will not hit every note, write every word nor paint every blade of grass. So you may go to the theatre to relax but if it's any good you'll go home thinking.
DB - Vagabond
-------------------------
Oi'll toon me fiddle and oi'll rosin me bow
And oi'll have music wheriver oi go.
Mark Haddon
*********************
Top o' the mornin' to you.
_______________________
Aeschylus, if you don't know him, was an ancient Greek playwright. He wrote great tragedies filled with poetry and drama. The world is blessed that some of his plays survive. Many years ago there was a cartoon in The New Yorker of two men in togas at an ancient theatre, standing and talking during intermission. And one says to the other "Oh, Aeschylus is all right, I suppose, but I go to the theatre to relax."
There are many reasons why people go to the theatre or to a concert or an art museum or read a novel. Relaxation may be one of them, but the really great works of art will make you think, maybe not at the moment, but eventually. A true artist knows he has to leave something for the audience member, the viewer, the listener, the reader, to do. When I first started painting I thought I had to completely fill up the canvas with details, until I saw some of the more interesting works by artists like Picasso and Braque. As a viewer I was being asked, no told, to supply information that seemed to be missing. In bookkeeping and other such precision tasks one has to dot every I and cross every T, but not in art.
A good story will leave it up to you to decide certain things from your own knowledge and imagination, if you've been following the story. There is more to the music than the musician plays.
In theatre there is something called "mysteries," but not mysteries in the detective story sense. The playwright doesn't tell the actor everything about the character. It is up to the actor, from his imagination and knowledge of acting and of the play, to fill in details. And at the same time we, as actors, don't give you all the details. We withhold some thoughts, feelings and expressions. We give you 75 to 90%, depending on the play, and let you construct the rest. Next time you see a film or TV drama notice if you are wondering what some character is thinking or feeling. If it's a good performance, with a good script you may not be told. Watch Marlon Brando in almost any film but particularly Mutiny On The Bounty. Every time I watch the film I'm fascinated by what his character is thinking and how he arrives at the decisions he makes.
Look at some delicate Japanese art. There may be a tree and a bridge with a mountain in the background. How you get from the bridge to the mountain is up to you.
Shakespeare, the great and unfathomable, sometimes invites you in to build the drama for yourself. In Henry the Fifth one character says to the audience "Think when we talk of horses that you see them printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth." He tells us to participate in the performance. There will be no horses on the stage, so we had better supply them.
Good artists will not hit every note, write every word nor paint every blade of grass. So you may go to the theatre to relax but if it's any good you'll go home thinking.
DB - Vagabond
-------------------------
Oi'll toon me fiddle and oi'll rosin me bow
And oi'll have music wheriver oi go.
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