TV/Movies Megathread

[Syt]

What a director does (mildly NSFW), courtesy Peter Gunn, Belladonna, and Alan Tudyck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njAC38WnQo0

[celedhring]

Of course, but an actor has to be aware what his character is about and his evolution throughout the story in order to portray it, it's part of his paygrade. They aren't blind parrots that just utter the lines they are fed every day.

That's an awfully romanticized view of it. Hitchcock was right: actors are cattle. Mamet is right: the search for the character is mental masturbation. The character is on the page. It is the actor's job to show up and hit his marks, as Cagney said. All the rest is funny voices.

And that's an awfully cynical one. I have worked with lots of actors, it makes the world of a difference to work with one that gets his character - at the very least it saves a lot of explaining, and they can contribute stuff that you didn't think about. It's their trade.

[Ideologue]

Yeah, the idea that actors are just robots seems blindly prejudiced.  And even if you did subscribe to that view, the "funny voices" (and the expressions they wear while delivering them) are as important as good writing, lighting, framing, editing, and production design.

[Scipio]

Yeah, the idea that actors are just robots seems blindly prejudiced.  And even if you did subscribe to that view, the "funny voices" (and the expressions they wear while delivering them) are as important as good writing, lighting, framing, editing, and production design.

The best actor cannot fix a terrible script, lousy direction, and shitty production design (Genghis Khan starring John Wayne, anybody)?

The point of Hitchcock, and Mamet, and Cagney's comments, is that the actor should be able to internalize his creative process, and not make the director have to deal with it. Wild Bill Donovan did not micromanage his OSS agents; he pointed them in the direction of the enemy, furnished them with orders, and let them get on with it. That is how acting gets done.

Martin Scorsese doesn't give a shit about the prep work Daniel Day Lewis does, how long it takes, or any of that other shit; DDL does his crazy nonsense, and Scorsese directs the fucking movie. An actor asking a director what his motivation is clearly hasn't been broke. Ever.

Your motivation is to put food on the table and earn a living. Just like the writer, the director, the cameraman, the sound editor, etc. If life is insufficient motivation, there is plenty of other talent out there that likes to eat and have shelter.

[Ideologue]

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).

Third best film of the year so far.  The silver lining to not having a fucking job is I can only afford to go see the good movies.

The new movie with my favorite superhero is out! Also starring his son Quicksilver

Btw, if you don't read 'em, the Quicksilver part is the best effects scene in a movie since Gravity, and absolutely the most thrilling three minutes I've seen in a theater since then.

[Ideologue]

Yeah, the idea that actors are just robots seems blindly prejudiced.  And even if you did subscribe to that view, the "funny voices" (and the expressions they wear while delivering them) are as important as good writing, lighting, framing, editing, and production design.

The best actor cannot fix a terrible script, lousy direction, and shitty production design (Genghis Khan starring John Wayne, anybody)?

The rest is fair, although I do think it's a bit more collaborative process than that generally.  (For a recent examples that are fresh in the mind, Daniel Craig was responsible for the music choice in the climactic scene in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which elevated it from being pretty okay to kind of great.  Eugenio Mira provided Elijah Wood with a lot of helpful acting tools in Grand Piano--the earpiece Wood's wearing as part of the plot isn't just relaying the dialogue John Cusack would later ADR in, but the music that he's supposed to be playing, so that it would look real.  So Elijah Wood didn't just show up ready to fake playing piano at a master level, and to ask him to do so would be kind of silly.  A director who wasn't able to solve that problem would've just used cutaway shots whereas Mira is able to use pans from Elijah's face to his hands without breaking the illusion, thanks to their collaborative working process.)

As for the quoted bit, actors save bad scripts constantly, at least as long as they're able to be on screen.  Charlize Theron's screaming evil queen in Snow White and the Hunstman is a good example.  Ingrid Bergman sells all sorts of bullshit in Spellbound.  Vivien Leigh is convincingly stupid and naive and rattled enough to talking about buying a car with cash in front of a cop who's already suspicious of her.  A lot of people found Greta Gerwig so charming that they overlooked that Frances Ha was atrocious garbage.

Edit: I'm not saying Psycho has a bad script, just that one bit.  I am saying that Spellbound has a bad script.

[Ideologue]

Oh, and the ur-example is probably Casablanca.  Ebert points it out in his commentary that we're invested enough in Bogart, Bergman, and Rains that it may go entirely unnoticed that the entire plot is bullshit, insofar as Victor Laszlow is made by actual Nazis and would be arrested within minutes.

[Sheilbh]

Malcolm McDowell's entire career is one noble attempt to save a film from itself after another.

[Eddie Teach]

Oh, and the ur-example is probably Casablanca.

Casablanca has a terrific script. It's a heck of a lot more quotable than any other movie those actors have done.

[frunk]

Casablanca has a terrific script. It's a heck of a lot more quotable than any other movie those actors have done.

The lines are almost all pure cheese.  Without the fantastic acting it would be terrible, and justifiable forgotten like many other movies of the period.

[The Brain]

Casablanca has a terrific script. It's a heck of a lot more quotable than any other movie those actors have done.

The lines are almost all pure cheese.  Without the fantastic acting it would be terrible, and justifiable forgotten like many other movies of the period.

You crazy?

[Ideologue]

I wouldn't call it cheesy, it just has that very arch style common to movies of the time.  (Versus "naturalistic" dialogue today I guess.  Lol. )

I just mean it has some real narrative logic problems--that there are parts of the script that are bad, not that it's a bad script.  But the magic of Bogart et al is that you only notice if you're looking for it.

[lustindarkness]

Nina and I watched Star Wars.  And she liked it.  Today we will watch Return,  and tomorrow we will finish up the trilogy.  Maybe next week we'll watch the prequels.

[Ideologue]

Did she do something bad?

[Tonitrus]

Did she do something bad?

I was going to make a "wouldn't dress up in Leia slave outfit" crack, but then wasn't sure if Nina might be a daughter instead of wife.