The Sheila Variations

Obsession Central: Cary Grant

The continuing saga from this post.

The moments from Affair to Remember that really stood out for me as examples of the special-ness and grace of Cary Grant's talent - moments that taste GOOD:

1. One of their last nights on the boat, when he comes to her room, saying they need to talk because "we have created quite a problem here"

Here's the set-up: The two of them spent a 5-hour lay-over going to visit Nicky's (Cary Grant's character) grandmother in her idyllic little villa. They have a magical afternoon. They realize (with no words passing between them) that they are in love, and that they are engaged to the wrong people. They return to the ship. She avoids him. He tracks her down, and finds her crying. They have a tortured conversation. What should they do? She says to him, "There are rough seas ahead of us." He says "I know. We changed course today, didn't we?" She asks for time to think about what they should do. A couple days go by, and they run into each other - but there's no more of that loving banter, nothing.

One night, it's raining. She sits in her cabin, and she is obviously distraught, just thinking over what she should do. A knock on the door. She answers, and it's him. She begs him to leave her alone, because to be seen together would be "disastrous".

He says, "I know, but we have created a problem here!"

She begs for a bit more time. She says she can think better while he's not around. She's in a dressing gown, and is holding him off at the door. He's leaning in the door.

She says something like, "So please. Go away for now. You can sit and think in your cabin - and I will sit and think in mine ... and we will think this through separately " -- as she says this, he finally starts to back away, nodding, and right before she shuts the door on him, she can't help but add, in a forceful and loving tone, "while we are missing each other."

She must add that. She must let him know that she loves him and misses him.

And his response to that - is so ... spontaneous and so real that I re-wound it 3 times. I feel like I have lived through that exact same moment with a guy or two in my life.

Anyway, you think at first that he is just going to accept her command and go away. He is about to. But then when she adds the "while we are missing each other" line - there is a brief pause - and he then comes back, leans his head in, and says with such simplicity, "Oh, that was very sweet." A brief pause. "What you just said."

Then he kisses her fingers, resting on the door jamb, and he's gone.

I can't really describe the moment better than that, and of course - seeing it is much better than reading a stupid description of it.

He seems so vulnerable in that moment, suddenly. He is so happy that she misses him, too. But it's the way he expresses it ... how he puts his head back in the door, and the "oh that was so sweet" seems to be improvisational. It seems like he just thought it up. And the brief pause, before he explains further, "What you just said."

I adore the moment.

Like I said - I feel like I have lived variations of that moment with guys I've been involved with. It doesn't look like a planned acting moment, it looks real.

2. When he returns to his grandmother's villa, after she has died, and walks through the empty living room

Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr both realized their growing feelings in this villa. The grandmother played piano with her wrinkled arthritic fingers, they had tea - something beautiful transpired. A dawning realization of the right-ness of the two of them together, as a couple.

Deborah Kerr fails to meet him on the day they had planned. Cary Grant thinks that she has blown him off.

He returns to the grandmother's villa - the grandmother is now dead.

All the scene consists of is this:

Cary Grant walks into the villa. He looks around. He stands by the piano, and puts his hand on the piano. An echo of the grandmother playing fills his mind. Then he walks over to the two chairs by the tea-table. He stands there. He looks around. Then he leaves.

It's an extended scene. No words. No other people. Just Cary Grant wandering around. It's all one take, too. No close-ups.

And what he does with this simple scene is so extraordinary. It seems so easy. It's as though we're peeking in through a window at him.

He stands at the piano. He puts his hand on the piano. You can start to hear the music start. He stands there for what feels like forever. There is no movement. All we see is Cary Grant - thinking, feeling things, remembering ... but it's all subtle. He's not weeping, or wailing. He is just standing there. But you pretty much get the entire story of his life from his stance and the myriad looks on his face.

Then - he walks over to the tea table - where his grandmother and Deborah Kerr had sat, having tea.

The following moments are so beautifully done, so simple, so "Method"-y - and he makes it look so easy that I didn't even notice it at first:

The 2 chairs are big Victorian-ish chairs with padded backs. Cary Grant goes to one of the chairs, leans on it, and places his hand on the fabric of the padding. Rests his hand there. As though he is feeling for a heartbeat or a pulse. He stands there for a while. Then he moves to the other chair. Does the same thing. Rests his hand on the padding-fabric. It's almost like you can feel the painful beats of his own heart - because he misses the two women who sat in those chairs so desperately.

It doesn't appear that Cary Grant is actually DOING anything - but oh, he is.

He is feeling for these two women - he is trying to pick up some of their body warmth - trying to feel his way into the past. But he can't. They're both gone.

Objects are very important in Method training. An object can trigger a whole emotional response. Lee Strasberg said, "There are times when you look at your shoes and you see your whole life." That's what I'm talking about here.

That's what Cary Grant is doing with those chairs.

It's heart-achingly beautiful. And simple. That's the best thing about it. Its simplicity.

3. The last scene - when he realizes that she is crippled

He comes to her apartment. She is lying on the couch. He doesn't know that she has lost the use of her legs. He is hard on her, he wants to know why she didn't "keep their appointment". He's angry. She doesn't ever let on that she can't walk.

There is a moment, right as he is about to leave, when he realizes what is going on. A woman came into the gallery that was showing his paintings and wanted to buy the painting he had done of Deborah Kerr and his grandmother. Cary Grant says something to Deborah Kerr like, "She loved the painting - but she didn't have any money apparently - and not only that - but ..." He's about to say "she was in a wheelchair" - and in that second, he realizes. He realizes.

But watch his moment of realization. How subtle it is. It's not a big moment, a big "a-HA" moment, or a teary-eyed moment. All it is is a slight adjustment in his eyes. He realizes. But along with that realization comes intense sorrow, of course. Intense sorrow. That she has been so badly hurt.

Without saying a word, he puts his coat and hat down, and rushes over to the bedroom door, flings it open, and sees the painting there. The painting he did of her.

The music of course swells to a climax, but it's unnecessary because it's all there on Cary Grant's face where 5,000 things happen at once.

He's stunned. There it is. His painting. My God, the look in his eyes!

In the next second, he is overcome. In a very Cary Grant way. His posture changes, straightens a bit, and he closes his eyes - for a deep long pained moment. He is getting himself together to go back to her. He is so so sad. But it's that moment of closing his eyes ...

I've said it before in my posts on acting: A general rule for actors is:

If YOU cry, more often than not the audience WON'T. It's when you hold BACK the tears, that you'll have to mop them up off the aisles.

Cary Grant closes his eyes. He is holding back his sadness for her. No tears. And yet there I was, with tears streaming down my face, even though I've seen the thing 15 times.

When he goes back to her side, his entire face is different. Open. Vulnerable. Concerned. Caring. Confused. In love with her. "Why? Why didn't you tell me?"

That whole sequence of moments: the coldness, the relentlessness, the shocked realization at the doorway, the stunned moment when he sees the painting, the pained closing of the eyes - is a masterful bit of acting. Just masterful.

Posted by sheila