- Getting into the skin of a character
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The acting profession involves getting into the skin of fictional characters and playing them in a way that is believable by conveying their emotions (or sometimes their lack of emotion). Playing a role therefore requires actors to prepare prior to filming. They not only have to memorise and learn how to say their lines, but also have to create their characters by adopting their traits, behaviour and reactions, etc.
The following clip is from the making of "The Shining" (USA, 1980) by Stanley Kubrick. It reveals how the actor Jack Nicholson gets into character prior to filming one of The Shining's key scenes.
In order to get into the role of this man who has gone mad, Jack Nicholson physically and mentally warms up with an impressive level of intensity! To do so, he deploys the Actors Studio's infamous method acting technique, developed in the 1950s, which involves drawing on emotions from your own experiences.
- Ever-evolving acting styles
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From the early days of cinema to the present day, acting styles have never stopped evolving. A silent actor doesn't move like an actor from the 1940s, whilst an actress from the 1960s doesn't have the same diction as a star from the 2010s. Just as the approaches to making films have differed depending on the era in question and the development of technical equipment, approaches to acting have changed and transformed and continue to do so.
What can be said about the actress Brigitte Helm's acting style in the following clip from "Metropolis" (Germany, 1927) directed by Fritz Lang, a masterpiece of the silent era?
The way that the actress performs the role, her gestures and wide-eyed poses are very expressive and exaggerated. This approach to acting originated in the theatre where actors' movements and expressions need to be amplified to ensure that audience members in the back row can follow what is happening on stage. Silent film actors adopted this acting style in order to compensate for the lack of dialogue and help the audience understand the plot. What's more, the low film sensitivity meant that facial expressions needed to be accentuated with heavy make-up, which impeded their acting to a certain degree.
Directors of the silent era quickly realised that cinema allowed them to express more ideas by using editing and different scales of shots (close-ups, semi-close-ups, long shots, etc.). In other words, by cutting scenes into various different shots, cinema developed the ability to be extremely expressive. This is why acting became more and more subtle.
In the following clip from "Singin' in the Rain" (USA, 1952) by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, the characters played by Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds argue about acting on stage and on screen…
Whilst the young lady played by Debbie Reynolds compares film actors to mere shadows, the character played by Gene Kelly mocks theatre actors by exaggerating his lines, gestures and facial expressions. In fact, stage acting is more expressive than screen acting. In the theatre, actors work on a stage and all audience members, even those seated in the back rows, need to be able to see the actors' gestures and facial expressions.
In the cinema, it's completely different: an actress won't act the same way if she is being filmed in a close-up compared to a long shot. She must adapt her acting style based on the blocking and the staging. For example, if she knows that her face is being filmed in a close-up, she will ensure that her facial expressions are subtle, as demonstrated in the following clip from "Opening Night" (USA, 1977) by John Cassavetes, where Gena Rowlands plays the role of a woman haunted by the death of an adoring young fan.
Conversely, an actor who knows that he is being filmed in a long shot and will therefore be seen by the audience from a certain distance will be less restrained, amplifying his gestures and body movements.
There are of course other differences between acting on stage and on screen. Stage actors have just one shot at getting a scene right. If they forget their lines, they can't redeem themselves. Screen actors, on the other hand, can do another take if they make a mistake. However, they need to demonstrate a great deal of concentration as most of the time they film scenes in the wrong order, which means that they need to know the script inside out so that they can play the role just right during each shoot.
- Constantly in development
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Whilst it develops over time, screen acting also varies from one trend, movement or film genre to another. For example, at the end of the 1950s, the directors of the French New Wave adopted a specific approach by making films which reminded the audience that cinema was a fabrication, a device. For that, they asked their actors not to hide behind their characters and to adopt particular phrasing, even if it meant coming across as less natural, as demonstrated in this clip from "Jules and Jim" (France, 1962) by François Truffaut who accentuated the actress's acting by using freeze framing.
In this clip, the way that the actress Jeanne Moreau talks is very exaggerated and not at all natural, thus reminding the audience that they are watching a film, which is reinforced by the freeze framing.
Actors' acting styles also vary depending on film genres. They don't adopt the same acting style in a comedy as in a horror film, for example. In the following clip from "Some Like It Hot" (USA, 1959) by Billy Wilder, what could be said about the way that the actors act?
It is clear that the actors playing the two musicians disguised as women in this comedy with Marilyn Monroe gesticulate a lot and that their facial expressions are rather pronounced. This is often the case with comedies which feature cross-dressing, where men clumsily endeavour to pass for women. And as with all comedies, the actors must above all deliver their lines by emphasizing them.
Whilst acting styles differ depending on genres, they also evolve based on cinematographic techniques. These days, in most blockbusters bursting with digital special effects, actors work in front of green or blue screens where computer-generated images of the sets in which they are supposed to be acting are embedded at a later date. With this type of filming, actors work "in a vacuum", sometimes even without any partners. They have to prove that they have an impressive capacity for imagination in order to get into character, as demonstrated in this clip from "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (New Zealand, 2001) directed by Peter Jackson, where the actor Ian McKellen of course acted in front of a green screen and not in front of a mythical creature…
The actor Ian McKellen, who plays the role of the wizard Gandalf, said that he was very put off by the idea of having to face his imaginary enemies in front of a ridiculous green screen. "This is not why I became an actor," he confessed one day to a journalist who was interviewing him about the evolution of the acting profession.
- Acting…but how?
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Acting involves expressing emotions, such as joy, anguish, hope, fear and admiration, etc. These days there are two main approaches to acting. Method acting encourages actors to really feel and immerse themselves in the character's emotions.
The other method is based on a more mechanical reproduction of attitudes and therefore favours editing of shots and staging for communicating a character's emotions. As a fan of this method (which is rooted in the "K effect" or "Kuleshov effect", an editing effect theorised by the Soviet director Lev Kuleshov), Alfred Hitchcock, for example, asked his actors to adopt a neutral or simplistic approach to their acting, as can be seen in the following clip from his film "North by Northwest" (USA, 1959).
In this scene, the character Roger Thornhill, played by the American actor Cary Grant, is wrongly accused of murder. It is more the staging rather than his very reserved acting style that conveys the character's tension and state of confusion.
Based on a theatrical technique invented by the Russian Konstantin Stanislavski, the infamous method acting approach has been adapted to the constraints of filmmaking and a whole generation of stars has been trained under this method, including James Dean, Steve McQueen, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, to name but a few.
This method works on the principle that actors don't need to imitate. As human beings themselves, they are capable of tapping into their own emotions to depict those of their characters, as demonstrated in the following clip from "Raging Bull" (USA, 1980) directed by Martin Scorsese, in which the boxer Jake LaMotta played by Robert De Niro finds himself in prison after a string of misfortunes…What could be said about his approach to playing this fallen hero?
Robert De Niro delivers an intense, almost animalistic performance to portray the anger boiling up inside of Jake LaMotta. He achieves this by drawing on his own mental and physical memories, no doubt recalling an unfair situation that he went through once himself.
Method acting has had such an impact on the acting profession that actors and actresses always resort to similar techniques. Ursula Meier uses a similar technique to guide her actors: she encourages them to use their own mental and physical memories to play their characters.
This is also why she sometimes uses non-professional actors. In fact, when she needs to fill a specific role, such as that of a police officer or a doctor, who could adopt the body language, the posture and vocabulary inherent in such a profession better than an actual police officer or doctor? Still, the chosen individuals have to be able to act, i.e. tap into their characters' emotions themselves in order to reproduce them in front of the camera. That's why, even when non-professional actors are recruited, the casting stage is still essential in order to test people's ability to act.
The fictional film "The Class" (France, 2008), directed by Laurent Cantet, depicts the daily life of a teacher of a class at a secondary school in Paris. In order to convey the story as realistically as possible, the director chose to film young, non-professional actors. Do they come across as natural?
Absolutely! These young, non-professional actors actually come across as incredibly natural. Their performances as secondary school pupils are flawless. They are "real", almost themselves. They express themselves with their own language, their own words, expressions and hesitations, which makes the film seem incredibly real. Using non-professional actors allows directors to inject a certain degree of sincerity and realness into fiction.
There are therefore two main approaches to film acting: either directors favour actors and ask them to draw on their own emotions, like Ursula Meier, or they ask them to remain understated and keep things simple, like Alfred Hitchcock, and allow the staging to do practically everything.
- Directing actors
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When actors appear in films, they are directed by directors, who give them instructions on how they want them to play their characters. It is what is referred to as directing actors. The way in which directors direct actors varies hugely depending on the director in question. Some provide the actors with very specific instructions whilst others allow them a lot of room to improvise.
On a shoot, actors must adopt a character for which the director will often have very specific ideas. Depending on the way that they are directed, their acting style may be very different from one film to the next and, above all, from one director to the next, as is so fascinatingly demonstrated by the following clips featuring characters all played by the American actor Johnny Depp.
The first clip, from "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" (USA, 1993) directed by Lasse Hallström, shows Johnny Depp playing the role of a young man who has to look after his mentally impaired brother…What can be said about his acting style?
Here, Johnny Depp plays a quiet, rather introverted character, by adopting an understated and reserved acting style. A few years later, he completely changes register, as demonstrated by this clip from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (USA, 2005) directed by Tim Burton.
In fact, in order to fit into the gothic and outlandish world of the director Tim Burton, Johnny Depp adopts a very expressive acting style for this film, exaggerating his facial expressions and gestures, no doubt on the instructions of Tim Burton, known for being a director who is very demanding of his actors…
In "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" (USA, 2006) directed by Gore Verbinski, the same actor plays the role of Captain Jack Sparrow, a completely off-the-wall pirate, as demonstrated in the following clip…
Taking inspiration from the outlandish roles given to him by Tim Burton, Johnny Depp created this character himself. On account of his star status, he could do this and was no longer directed by the director who had his work cut out for him on the set of this very expensive blockbuster anyway. The result is that he overacts the part and comes across as a little over the top!
These different clips therefore show that, over time, Depp has built up an extravagant character that is his own and which directors and films now tend to typecast him into. As such, he hardly ever refreshes his acting style. Luckily for him though, directors sometimes offer him more risky roles, a process known as casting against type, as in "Black Mass" (USA, 2015) directed by Scott Cooper, in which he plays a dangerous gangster…
In this clip, Johnny Depp adopts a much less flashy or showy style of acting, which would suggest that the filmmaker has given him quite a lot of direction. As such, the actor has worked on his voice to embody a shrewd, vicious and very vulgar criminal character. This is casting against type because this role is unlike those that Depp usually plays. It is therefore important for actors and actresses to be directed by filmmakers, otherwise they tend to limit themselves by repeating what they can already do…
This would never happen to the actors and actresses that director Ursula Meier casts in her films as she puts a lot of effort into directing them. Her acting instructions are very specific and cover emotions, body language and gait as well as positioning within the space on camera. Meier also attaches a great deal of importance to actors' bodies, how they live in their bodies, and how they bring their bodies to life. She also knows exactly how demanding to be, whilst respecting certain boundaries.
Conversely, some directors tend to adopt a very hands-off approach to their actors and allow them a lot of room to improvise. This approach can help to build a relationship of trust which makes actors become creative, encouraging them to suggest their own ideas to filmmakers.
This is the approach adopted by the French director Olivier Assayas who doesn't believe in doing any rehearsals prior to filming. When the actors arrive on set, he gives them a few vague instructions on the scene they're about to shoot and allows them to launch into it in front of the camera with total freedom, as in this clip from "Clouds of Sils Maria" (France, 2014), which features two great actresses: Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart.
This semi-improvised technique can achieve very spontaneous results. Of course, directors will film the same scene several times, redirecting their actors between takes towards the result that they want to achieve.
Whether the direction given to actors is prescriptive or very free, it is an aspect of the job of a filmmaker that has to be mastered. This veritable artistic collaboration is defined by the relationship that filmmakers build up with each actor, where possible based on a commitment to listening to each other in order to create a joint piece of work. The provision of direction to actors is therefore largely responsible for a film's very soul: the necessary instructions have to be given to each actor for each shot in each scene of the film to ensure that their character is properly executed in a situation set up by the screenplay and the director.
- About Ursula Meier
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A director and screenwriter of French-Swiss origin, Ursula Meier studied filmmaking in Brussels. She started out by making several short films, the success of which at film festivals encouraged her to pursue her career. In 2002, she filmed her first feature-length film, "Neither Cops Nor Blacks Nor Whites", a documentary depicting the surprising journey of a police officer from Geneva, and "Strong Shoulders", which tells the story of a teenager who wants to become a top-level athlete.
In 2008, Ursula Meier made "Home", her first fictional feature-length film for cinema, a harsh depiction of a dysfunctional family living alongside an uncompleted highway on which work finally continues. In 2012, she filmed "Sister", an unrelenting story about inequality and absence of love, which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
These two films launched the career of Kacey Mottet Klein and showcased the director's talent for directing actors. Ursula Meier received the 2016 Swiss Film Award for Best Short Film for the short cinema lesson "Kacey Mottet Klein, Birth of an Actor".
