Philip Drake (2016) Reframing Television Performance. Journal of Film and Video, 68 (3-4). p. 6. ISSN 0742-4671 Downloaded from: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/624779/ Version: Accepted Version Publisher: University of Illinois Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.5406/jfilmvideo.68.3-4.0006 Please cite the published version https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk Reframing Television Performance philip drake a decade ago, i wrote an article titled the actor’s publicist). A decade later, although “Reconceptualizing Screen Performance” there has been more sustained exploration for a 2006 special edition of this journal. A of film performance, there is—and this was number of writers have gratifyingly engaged missing in my own article—an even greater with a range of the points I made there; how­ lack of analysis of television performance. ever, it seems to me that the arguments I This absence is especially odd considering the presented neither changed doxa nor have had significant attention given to what has become an adequate refutation in the rethinking of termed “quality TV” in the past decade or so, screen performance. My central argument was applied to TV shows in which, ironically, televi­ that performance is fundamentally different sion performances are quite clearly central to from representation and that all media texts the shows’ achievements and audience en­ are essentially performative, constructing gagement.1 The distinctiveness of such quality particular relationships between performer television as The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking and audience. Further, I suggested that an Bad, and House of Cards, it seems to me, is at emphasis on discerning intentionality “in” least in part due to their screen performances. performance (and by an actor) is, for me, a My starting point in thinking about perfor­ less productive approach than analyzing how mance in my earlier article was to place empha­ performances deploy a particular repertoire sis on framing, arguing that “conceptualizing of techniques and skills to structure meaning performance involves not just reading actors’ and inference, regardless of whether the actor performances, important though this is, but also may intend this or not. In my earlier article, I a wider consideration of the ontology of film, also noted that there had been a relative lack and the epistemological frames through which of attention given to critical analysis of screen screen performance makes sense” (Drake, “Re­ performance relative to the plethora of acting conceptualizing” 84). Only by opening up ques­ manuals and studies of individual stars and tions of ontology and epistemology, I suggested, the considerable focus on acting in journal­ can we understand the particularity of screen istic interviews (the latter usually conducted performance, how it is different from everyday in press junkets, carefully stage­managed by performance, and how it is meaningful. In mak­ ing this point, I was drawing on a range of work from symbolic interactionism, phenomenologi­ philip drake is head of the Department of Media cal sociology, ordinary language philosophy, and a professor of film, media, and communica­ and media and performance studies, rather than tions at Edge Hill University, United Kingdom. He the limited theoretical work on performance in recently coedited Hollywood and Law (BFI Pal­ grave, 2015) and has also written on image rights film and television studies. Part of my article was in Hollywood, on television and deregulation, and focused on star performers who bring extratex­ on screen performance and celebrity. tual celebrity signification to their roles, offering 6 journal of film and video 68.3–4 / fall/winter 2016 ©2016 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois JFV 68_3-4 text.indd 6 8/31/16 11:29 AM audiences a multiply coded performance, where by insisting that personalities are not elided the actor is recognized both as a star performing with actors/stars. Making a distinction between himself or herself and as a character within a the television actor or star and the television narrative. However, I was also interested in the personality, he argues that “performers who play performance of the nonrecognizable supporting themselves, mak[e] little distinction between actors and the work they perform, anchoring onscreen and private personas” (Bennett 35). those stars to dramatic realism and verisimili­ Freed from dominant conventions of realism, tude through performances using indirect ad­ such as indirect address and fourth­wall camera dress. This services narrative and works with placement, television performance is routinely rather than against mise­en­scène, reinforcing more varied: a news presenter, for instance, can fourth­wall staging, and uses effaced camera, perform live and direct to camera; a quiz show synchronous sound, and other conventions of can acknowledge the camera; a comedy can realist drama. My analysis of Marlon Brando’s disrupt conventions of realism without break­ screen performance in the opening scene of The ing frame. Television performance includes not Godfather (1972), for instance, considered the only dramatic acting but also direct­address performance of the star, Brando, playing Don performance of news presenting, hosting of quiz Corleone against the anchoring function offered shows, performing with non­actors in lifestyle by the Italian actor playing Bonasera, Salvatore and makeover shows, performing “self” in real­ Corsitto (Drake, “Reconceptualizing” 90–92). ity television formats, and more (Lury). The ex­ Brando, I suggested, is positioned in order to ploration of a range of performances in Beverley be presented as an ostended sign, mediated Skeggs and Helen Wood’s work on reality televi­ through his star image. Brando’s performance sion audiences and the varied essays in Chris­ draws upon the other actor in the scene, who tine Cornea’s collection on genre and film and performs according to a different, realist econ­ television performance all demonstrate the wide omy of acting. Corsitto—an actor who made very range of performers and modes of performance few film appearances—secures realism through at play across television. his representational performance, anchoring the The familiar relationship one has with televi­ narrative. sion performances has also changed with shifts I now wish to turn to television. In his reex­ in television technology (Newman and Levine). amination of television’s “personality system,” The rise of high­definition television sets (1080p updating the term used by John Langer in 1981 to and, more recently, 4K resolution “Ultra HD” outline how television fame differed from cine­ sets), as well as an overall rise in average televi­ matic stardom, James Bennett suggests a distinc­ sion screen sizes and multiple­screen house­ tion between “televisually skilled” and “vocation­ holds, means that television performance can ally skilled” performers. He argues, “Televisually be scrutinized more closely and in more detail skilled performers are defined by the performers’ by audiences. The availability of video and then lack of any skill, other than that of television DVD box sets and, more recently, video­on­de­ presenting, that informs their performance—the mand (VOD) services has meant that audiences content of the show is irrelevant to their ‘real’ life can also experience television performances or any ‘skills’ they may hold therein” (Bennett in new ways: “binge­watching” an entire sea­ 36; author’s italics). Discerning skill is, however, son, for instance, or watching episodes across a matter of inference, so such distinctions can multiple devices in self­scheduled viewing be made by considering the framing of perfor­ slots. As is the case for many people, my own mance: the television presenter is placed within viewing practices have altered, and my viewing a performance frame that gives her or his per­ is regularly done via “catch­up” and nonlinear formance its particular authority and meaning. television services available through the Internet Bennett argues for the distinction to be retained rather than via traditional linear broadcast televi­ between stars and television personalities, but sion. The example I discuss later in this article, journal of film and video 68.3–4 / fall/winter 2016 7 ©2016 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois JFV 68_3-4 text.indd 7 8/31/16 11:29 AM FX’s The Americans, I watched entirely online no longer mattering in the ways that it did previ­ via Internet services (in this case Amazon Prime ously (Caughie, “Playing”; Caughie, “Telephilia”; Video) rather than as a scheduled broadcast. Caughie, “Mourning”). The “must­see” single play of British television in the 1970s has, in the Television Performance: United Kingdom, been partially replaced by the Accumulation, Repetition, Pleasure “must­see TV” imported from US cable networks, available to watch online. Accumulation and To address television performance in detail, I plenitude can be a double­edged sword. For wish to set aside debates over television star­ Caughie, this “monstrous accumulation of televi­ dom or personality systems: issues I have con­ sion” (“Mourning” 418) has led to sidered elsewhere in analyzing television enter­ tainers and reality television celebrities (Drake, the loss of a “seriousness” in which television “Celebrity”; Drake and Haynes). Through the actually matters; of a “popularity” which is not rest of this article, I wish to examine perfor­ simply obedient to the market; the fading of the possibilities of a different television which mance in television drama. In Bennett’s terms, seemed to open in the UK with Channel 4; or I am focusing on the television actor, who per­ the waning of an object of study which has forms a role rather than personifies it, rather simply been overwhelmed by too many texts— than on the television personality. This is in too many texts for the discipline of television contrast to most work on television performers, studies to discipline; too many texts and too which focuses on television’s celebrity system. many carriers of texts.