Chapter Six
Key Light—Film Acting
There are a number of important points to keep in mind about acting in film: a film performance is not a performance in the conventional sense because it is done in fits and starts, bits and pieces, usually out of sequence. Beyond dialogue, film acting is dependent on the gaze—the ways in which characters look or do not look at one another or at objects. There seem to be a set number of facial expressions and ways of holding the body that instantly communicate emotional states.
A few actors are responsive to one director, giving that director their best performance.
Robert De Niro, for example, did his best work with Martin Scorsese, in films such as Taxi Driver
(1976) and Raging Bull (1980). His later work without Scorsese—especially those films in which he attempts a comic performance—are not very good. Meet the Fockers (Jay Roach, 2004) is not a memorable film or a stellar job of acting on De Niro’s part. It is not that De Niro can’t do comedy. Scorsese’s The Kind of Comedy (1982) proves that he can take the psychopathic character of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and turn it upside down for comic effect.
John Wayne, an actor who has moved from his role in films to become a cultural icon long after his death, is another case in point. Wayne was not a very good actor unless he was being directed by John Ford, which he was in more than twenty films, or by Howard Hawks, for whom he made three. Compare his performance in non-Ford Westerns like The Alamo (1960), which he directed himself, with Ford’s The Searchers (1956).
In Chapter 6, we saw a number of stock poses and gazes that are repeated from film to film, by actor to actor. Continue this database with other examples of facial expressions and body language. How do these conventional acting gestures and looks compare with how we act in everyday life? Once you can establish the way film characters look, can you still hold that film acting is realistic?