Acting is a Sham!
Living in Los Angeles, and having lived 2 years with a man who fancied himself an actor, and also participating in my high school drama program for a few plays (I even had the lead once
), I think I can safely say that the art of acting is a sham. Anyone can do it. Sure, some do it better than others, but considering awards shows are nothing more than popularity contests mixed with a lot of cock sucking, it is an issue of constant amazement to me why we as a nation tend to focus on actors to drive the vehicle of celebrity rather than the writer, or the director. Hell, even the Best Boy has a more specific and difficult job than any actor could ever fathom.
I'm reminded of a book I read just as I began my college career o' those many years hence. It was a novel titled 'Emma Who Saved My Life,' and to this day I have a soft spot in my pancreas for it. Wilton Barnhardt is one of those writers I don't respect for his technical prowess so much as his character development and the way in which those characters communicate with each other. Take for instance the title subject, Emma. A strong, opinionated woman--often times taken for a bitch, and completely warranted. Yet she had an innocence I identified strongly with, mostly routed through the main character who was telling the story.
Anyway, she wrote a treatise of banned words as concerns actors that has, to this day, stuck with me more than anything else from that book. Here's the exerpt...
Emma's Banned Words
1. Vision
2. Craft
3. Work
Work, I asked?
"Yes, as in 'I have my work,' or 'I enjoyed watching his work in that production.' Actors are just jerking around up there, it's not work, you know that."
4. Medium
5. Art
"Art" is a pretty useful word though, I pointed out.
"It's just banned from possessive uses: as in 'my art' or 'the key to an actor's art, his craft...' Like that."
6. Stagecraft
Yeah, I admited that did have to go.
7. Demand
8. Piece
Emma demonstrated in a high, hollow actress's voice: "Well I felt acutely burdened by the demands of that role, it was a difficult piece, a hard piece of work, it took all that I had to give, all my art, my craft..."
9. Joy
"Actors should never discuss their joy in the role, the joy of their craft--I tell you Gil, there was much joy at that party tonight.
10. Love
"As in 'I felt this support, this approval coming from the audience that could only be described... yes, as Love...' As in 'What I Did For Love.' As in 'the only way to describe what goes on between the actor and his audience is... love...'"
Anyway, Emma did go on to say that she would be expanding the list for all professions, not exclusive to theater, so as not to completely fill the character with cynicism and forced anti-pretention. But let me just finish this little piece with a couple of thoughts--an amusing little story from the set of the great film Marathon Man...
Dustin Hoffman (being a "method actor") stayed up all night to play a character who has stayed up all night. Arriving on the set, Laurence Olivier asked him why he looked the way he did. Hoffman told him, to which Olivier replied in jest: "Why not try acting? It's much easier."
And finally a quote from the late, and wise Katherine Hepburn.
"Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four."
Living in Los Angeles, and having lived 2 years with a man who fancied himself an actor, and also participating in my high school drama program for a few plays (I even had the lead once
), I think I can safely say that the art of acting is a sham. Anyone can do it. Sure, some do it better than others, but considering awards shows are nothing more than popularity contests mixed with a lot of cock sucking, it is an issue of constant amazement to me why we as a nation tend to focus on actors to drive the vehicle of celebrity rather than the writer, or the director. Hell, even the Best Boy has a more specific and difficult job than any actor could ever fathom.
I'm reminded of a book I read just as I began my college career o' those many years hence. It was a novel titled 'Emma Who Saved My Life,' and to this day I have a soft spot in my pancreas for it. Wilton Barnhardt is one of those writers I don't respect for his technical prowess so much as his character development and the way in which those characters communicate with each other. Take for instance the title subject, Emma. A strong, opinionated woman--often times taken for a bitch, and completely warranted. Yet she had an innocence I identified strongly with, mostly routed through the main character who was telling the story.
Anyway, she wrote a treatise of banned words as concerns actors that has, to this day, stuck with me more than anything else from that book. Here's the exerpt...
Emma's Banned Words
1. Vision
2. Craft
3. Work
Work, I asked?
"Yes, as in 'I have my work,' or 'I enjoyed watching his work in that production.' Actors are just jerking around up there, it's not work, you know that."
4. Medium
5. Art
"Art" is a pretty useful word though, I pointed out.
"It's just banned from possessive uses: as in 'my art' or 'the key to an actor's art, his craft...' Like that."
6. Stagecraft
Yeah, I admited that did have to go.
7. Demand
8. Piece
Emma demonstrated in a high, hollow actress's voice: "Well I felt acutely burdened by the demands of that role, it was a difficult piece, a hard piece of work, it took all that I had to give, all my art, my craft..."
9. Joy
"Actors should never discuss their joy in the role, the joy of their craft--I tell you Gil, there was much joy at that party tonight.
10. Love
"As in 'I felt this support, this approval coming from the audience that could only be described... yes, as Love...' As in 'What I Did For Love.' As in 'the only way to describe what goes on between the actor and his audience is... love...'"
Anyway, Emma did go on to say that she would be expanding the list for all professions, not exclusive to theater, so as not to completely fill the character with cynicism and forced anti-pretention. But let me just finish this little piece with a couple of thoughts--an amusing little story from the set of the great film Marathon Man...
Dustin Hoffman (being a "method actor") stayed up all night to play a character who has stayed up all night. Arriving on the set, Laurence Olivier asked him why he looked the way he did. Hoffman told him, to which Olivier replied in jest: "Why not try acting? It's much easier."
And finally a quote from the late, and wise Katherine Hepburn.
"Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four."
vudugrl:
i heard that story about Laurence Olivier before~ very clever. oh, and you are mistaken. not everyone can act. take me for example, or say, Keanu Reeves. but i can tell a fib like a MF. i guess that's sort of like acting.