So You Weren't Happy with Who Won the Oscar
Peter O'Toole in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia |
What makes an actor great? How can we say certain actors are better than others when art is supposed to be subjective? As it is with directing, acting is in part a craft that can be "objectively" assessed as subjective as the experience it provides the viewers may be. The problem with writing this post, however, is I know very little about acting. Fortunately, I still know "enough" to articulate a few qualities that make for a great actor.
Agility -- the ability to shift tones and mood serially with ease -- is one of those qualities. Notice the number of tones Diane Keaton goes through in just a few lines in this scene: "I know I could have been a better wife to you. Kinder. I could have made love with you more often. Or once even." She goes from guilty, apologetic realization to semi-detached observation to complete detachment. Different but another great example by Robert De Niro.
Texture is another quality that makes for a great actor. When you are talking to someone you share a complicated history with, even the most non-descriptive words (e.g. "Why?" "Thank you," "No, I didn't know.") are spoken with an array of emotions coming and going, rising and falling within the width of a word or sentence. Great actors conjure up this emotional complexity in their performance. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a master at this, so much so that I wish she worked in film instead of television. Here is an example from the HBO series Veep, which I strongly recommend to anyone.
But let's get more specific. One subtle mark of a great actor is the deliberate choice of focus. To illustrate the point, we will look at a scene from Martin Scorsese's Age of Innocence.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ft3xmt5hR0
In both of the stills, Ellen (Michelle Pfeiffer) is looking at Newland (Daniel Day-Lewis). But her focus is further away from the camera in the first still. What this does is make Ellen come off as more distant and closed off. Why would Michelle Pfeiffer do this?
For those who haven't seen the film or read the novel it's based on, all you really need to know is Ellen and Newland harbor very conflicted feelings about each other. They constantly switch roles between the one who is hurt and the one who does the hurting. And more often than not, they're too hurt to see the other is "enduring it" too and misunderstand each other's fear of being hurt as disdain towards them.
The first still is preceded by Newland saying, "There really is no reason on earth why you shouldn't go back." He's obviously hurt that Ellen had tried "to get as far away from [him] as she [could]." And he's a bit set off by Ellen's talk of honesty when she herself hasn't always been forthcoming with him. But of course Martin Scorsese cuts to an over-the-shoulder shot of Ellen when Newland starts a very personal admission and a pointed rebuke: "You gave me my first glimpse of a real life. And then you told me to carry on (switches back to an over-the-shoulder shot of Newland) with a false one. No one can endure that." Scorsese's purpose in showing Ellen's face for a big chunk of the line isn't to highlight Ellen's perspective. It's to further pull the audience into Newland's perspective and Michelle Pfeiffer understands this. So she is portraying Ellen as how Newland perceives her by having her focus on the right side of Daniel Day-Lewis' face that's farther away from the camera (i.e. distant and closed off).
In the second still, Ellen has just revealed to Newland that she's in just as much as him and that she still hasn't given up on them. Which is to say, placing her focus on the side of Daniel Day-Lewis' face that's closer to the camera is the right choice for two reasons. One, it only makes sense for Ellen to appear more open to draw the audience into her own perspective given she's made an extremely personal and vulnerable admission. And second, Newland no longer sees Ellen as distant and closed off.
Where to lay your eyes may be a subtle choice for an actor. But it's one of those choices that separate a top-tier performance from a merely competent one. And to digress a bit, it's these subtle choices that actors with extensive theatre background and experience who mistakenly look down on screen acting often criminally lack.
Agility -- the ability to shift tones and mood serially with ease -- is one of those qualities. Notice the number of tones Diane Keaton goes through in just a few lines in this scene: "I know I could have been a better wife to you. Kinder. I could have made love with you more often. Or once even." She goes from guilty, apologetic realization to semi-detached observation to complete detachment. Different but another great example by Robert De Niro.
Texture is another quality that makes for a great actor. When you are talking to someone you share a complicated history with, even the most non-descriptive words (e.g. "Why?" "Thank you," "No, I didn't know.") are spoken with an array of emotions coming and going, rising and falling within the width of a word or sentence. Great actors conjure up this emotional complexity in their performance. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a master at this, so much so that I wish she worked in film instead of television. Here is an example from the HBO series Veep, which I strongly recommend to anyone.
But let's get more specific. One subtle mark of a great actor is the deliberate choice of focus. To illustrate the point, we will look at a scene from Martin Scorsese's Age of Innocence.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ft3xmt5hR0
In both of the stills, Ellen (Michelle Pfeiffer) is looking at Newland (Daniel Day-Lewis). But her focus is further away from the camera in the first still. What this does is make Ellen come off as more distant and closed off. Why would Michelle Pfeiffer do this?
For those who haven't seen the film or read the novel it's based on, all you really need to know is Ellen and Newland harbor very conflicted feelings about each other. They constantly switch roles between the one who is hurt and the one who does the hurting. And more often than not, they're too hurt to see the other is "enduring it" too and misunderstand each other's fear of being hurt as disdain towards them.
The first still is preceded by Newland saying, "There really is no reason on earth why you shouldn't go back." He's obviously hurt that Ellen had tried "to get as far away from [him] as she [could]." And he's a bit set off by Ellen's talk of honesty when she herself hasn't always been forthcoming with him. But of course Martin Scorsese cuts to an over-the-shoulder shot of Ellen when Newland starts a very personal admission and a pointed rebuke: "You gave me my first glimpse of a real life. And then you told me to carry on (switches back to an over-the-shoulder shot of Newland) with a false one. No one can endure that." Scorsese's purpose in showing Ellen's face for a big chunk of the line isn't to highlight Ellen's perspective. It's to further pull the audience into Newland's perspective and Michelle Pfeiffer understands this. So she is portraying Ellen as how Newland perceives her by having her focus on the right side of Daniel Day-Lewis' face that's farther away from the camera (i.e. distant and closed off).
In the second still, Ellen has just revealed to Newland that she's in just as much as him and that she still hasn't given up on them. Which is to say, placing her focus on the side of Daniel Day-Lewis' face that's closer to the camera is the right choice for two reasons. One, it only makes sense for Ellen to appear more open to draw the audience into her own perspective given she's made an extremely personal and vulnerable admission. And second, Newland no longer sees Ellen as distant and closed off.
Where to lay your eyes may be a subtle choice for an actor. But it's one of those choices that separate a top-tier performance from a merely competent one. And to digress a bit, it's these subtle choices that actors with extensive theatre background and experience who mistakenly look down on screen acting often criminally lack.
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