Sidney Lumet:
Howard Hawks was once asked to name the most important element in an actor’s performance. His answer was “confidence”. In a sense, that is really what’s been going on during rehearsal: the actors are gaining confidence in revealing their inner selves. They’ve been learning about me. I hold nothing back. If the actors are going to hold nothing back in front of the camera, I can hold nothing back in front of them. They have to be able to trust me, to know that I “feel” them and what they’re doing. This mutual trust is the most important element between the actor and me.
I worked with Marlon Brando on The Fugitive Kind. He’s a suspicious fellow. I don’t know if he bothers anymore, but Brando tests the director on the first or second day of shooting. What he does is to give you two apparently identical takes. Except that on one, he is really working from the inside; and on the other, he’s just giving you an indication of what the emotion was like. Then he watches which one you decide to print. If the director prints the wrong one, the “indicated” one, he’s had it. Marlon will either walk through the rest of the performance or make the director’s life hell, or both. Nobody has the right to test people like that, but I can understand why he does that. He doesn’t want to pour out his inner life to someone who can’t see what he’s doing.
At the same time they’re learning about me, I’m finding out things about the actors. What stimulates them, what triggers their emotions? What annoys them? How’s their concentraion? Do they have a technique? What method of acting do they use? The “Method” made famous at the Actors’ Studio, based on the teaching of Stanislavsky, is not the only one. Ralph Richardson, whom I saw give at least three great performances, in theatre and film, used a completely auditory musical system. During rehearsals of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, he asked a simple question. Forty-five minutes later I finished my answer. (I talk a lot). Ralph paused a moment and then sonorously said: “I see what you mean, dear boy: a little more cello, a little less flute.”
I was, of course, enchanted. And of course, he was putting me down, telling me not to be so long-winded. But we talked in musical terms from then on: “Ralph, a little more staccato.” “A slower tempo, Ralph.”
I subsequently found out that when he appeared in the theatre, he played a violin in his dressing room before a performance as a warm-up. He used himself as a musical instrument, literally.
Heh heh
Despite not having taken a workshop with Sidney I have heard that quote before too.. no recollection where.. but “I see what you mean dear boy: a little more cello a little less flute”.. heh heh.
Come to think of it.. it may well have been an interview with Larry Olivier.. maybe..
But the point, the point of this comment.. is that I watched a documentary on Marlon Brando last night.. part of a BBC series presented by Alan Yentob called Imagine. Some great interviews included, Elaine Strich stands out.. but Francis Ford Coppola made a similar comment about directing Brando, I’m not sure if I remember it correctly but it was along the lines of.. ‘Marlon didn’t want ‘directorly’ direction just.. a little slower.. a little faster.. and he would do everything else’ – no confrontation, said Francis, other directors had tried that to challenge Brando for supremacy on set.. and it didn’t work.
There was also a very interesting section with Bernando Bertolucci about Last Tango in Paris.
Before Godfather was released Brando started work on Last Tango, Bertolucci was unimpressed with the initial work on the film and decided that he needed to get Brando to expose those inner workings more (IMHO it also seemed clear that Brando was keen to purge the experience of Godfather in some way). But whatever it was, and Bertolucci talked about giving Brando direct instructions to ‘reveal something of himself’ at one point and letting the camera roll. That, to me, is a film that Brando is in rather than acting (or starring) in.
Bertolucci also pointed out that Brando wouldn’t speak to him for years afterwards.
The most important element isn’t confidence, that comes naturally with what IS the most important: Experience.
All this inverse-method stuff they’re teaching these days is 90% bunk. Much as with writing, to be convincing as an actor, you must have actually done something similar to that which you’re trying to portray.
The difference between someone who knows how something feels and should be expressed, and someone who is trying to pass off a second hand description of it, is often quite stark.
Sheila, does your Lumet book talk about The Wiz? I’m curious.
Stevie – Yeah, there’s a ton of stuff on the Wiz. I’ll post some of those too.