EGON SCHIELE and THE ACTOR
The biggest lie schools of “acting” and “directing” have manufactured is the “process”. This “process”, they claim, is the essence and the real development of the actor’s character study and also somewhat relates the director to the actor and vice versa, pretending to aid a better telling of the story or narrative. This “process” pretends to happen in pre-production or so-called development stage and during production itself, simultaneously disregarding the subject matter and the more important aftermath.
Believing and practicing the “process” leads to self-admiration on both sides of the camera and stage, bringing forth a bogus sense of pretense that lifts the focus from the work itself to the people involved in the production; allowing the cinema to act as a playground for the actors’ personal manifestations and self-importance (covered up by the misbelief that it will ultimately create better elements and building blocks for the story to be told).
Among many other unpleasant side effects, the “process” is largely responsible for most of the oversaturation of narrative and character in cinema at large while shrinking the essential purpose of celluloid art: representation of ideas and behavior; a notion much closer to painting rather than storytelling, theater or photography (though an analogy is not necessary or useful).
Cinema’s purpose is not to tell stories. But the current state of new cinema, including the so-called “independents” tell stories; translating literature with a linear narrative onto the cinematic medium that wants to remain predominantly visual, behavioral and theoretical as that is its nature, birthright and a much more interesting place to be than the narrative-based platform which belongs and works better in literature. The idea of the book or novel is perfect and beautiful as it is, it doesn’t need to be carried over to other artforms.
Extended practice of the “process” and the muscle narrative over the last century has poisoned cinema by mesmerizing audiences and the directors by the “and then and then”; stimulating the human mind to find out “what happens next”.
Cinema has its own vocabulary and syntax to build meaning. It does not need to use tools and structures of literature and/or theater to construct its unique substance which can pretty much only be described by its own name; cinema.
The extreme oversaturation of dramatic narrative and the “actor’s process” has led most actors and directors to believe that acting is a profession of its own. This is alarming and dangerous. There is no profession such as acting; it is NOT possible to be an ACTOR that can simultaneously practice this false profession in both theater and cinema; the notion of the ACTOR that ACTS a certain CHARACTER no matter what the composition format is a counterfeit reference to the theater world before the invention of the moving pictures.
A quick thoughtless amalgam of the self-sustaining system of PROCESS, NARRATIVE, CHARACTER and ACTING in the 1930s (primarily for financial reasons) has given birth to the organism known as the STAR which, being also a cardboard profession, is not as corrupt as the modern day version of the CROSS-INDUSTRY ACTOR.
Last paragraph: I am not going to say anything about theater-acting or any other kind of acting that might be out there today as they are not my concern or interest. But I would like to say a few things about acting in the cinema. Acting in cinema means that your profession is CINEMA and NOT acting. Fundamentally, this means that any “actor” partaking in cinematic art should be engulfed by it and realize the responsibility they carry to a medium that is not only bigger and more complex than their personal manifestations or goal but also requires a certain love, deep interest and education in its past, present and future on an intellectual and theoretical basis. Cinema is partly a self-referential art and requires studying. It’s an art of ideas that is not newly-born, it’s labyrinth of idea representation, identification-reflection, micro/macro realization is not something to stumble on in a magazine at a train station. It is much bigger than ACTING and can only encompass it. I am, on a somewhat regular basis, faced with actors who see cinema as ANOTHER medium they can work in. This unaware and childish instinct to ACT for the sake of ACTING is the main reason why auditions are flooded with disappointment and the market is oversaturated with films that don’t mean a thing or have any afterlife. A real FILM doesn’t end when it ends. It has an afterlife because it’s a film of IDEAS, because it works off of a history of cinema, because it’s another entry in the library of cinema that can not and does not exist with single entities but as a library at large. To put it simpler; an actor that hasn’t studied or is not at least genuinely interested in the IDEAS (not necessarily films) of, say, FELLINI or FASSBINDER or BERGMAN (eventhough I don’t like him) or doesn’t know who MELIES is, is only clearly self-obsessed with desire for personal exhibition and thus will not find himself properly situated in cinema. The cinema is big, it’s doors are open, but it requires more investment and study from the ACTOR than just ACTING.
In a nutshell: The cinema is NOT an artform composed of ACTING, CHARACTER, NARRATIVE and the PROCESS. It is a much bigger platform of THOUGHT-IMAGE-BEHAVIOR-HYPOTHESIS construction that can only be composed by studying its own essence, history and complexity at all its levels. To leave you with another example of what I mean; EGON SCHIELE’s paintings are much more precious to cinema than SCORCESE will ever be.
