{"id":28126,"date":"2010-09-29T11:49:58","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T15:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=28126"},"modified":"2015-06-25T08:17:23","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T12:17:23","slug":"r-i-p-arthur-penn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=28126","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. Arthur Penn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Obituary here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bonnie and Clyde<\/i>, a landmark in so many ways. I am right now tearing through Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, Peter Biskind’s biography of Warren Beatty, so it’s all very close to the surface for me. In tribute to Arthur Penn (president of the Actors Studio, and because of that I’ve met him numerous times and took a workshop with him – very kind and generous man), here is a great anecdote from Gene Wilder in his memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger<\/a><\/i>, that gives a good and simple explanation of what was special about Penn’s ability to work with actors, rare, indeed. <\/p>\n

My first scene began with Evan and me sitting in the back of her car, supposedly chasing the Barrow Gang. I waited for Arthur Penn to call \u201cAction\u201d. Arthur was sitting alongside the camera \u2013 out of frame, of course \u2013 but not more than five or six feet away from me. As soon as I heard him say, \u201cAction,\u201d I started to act. Sounds sensible, doesn\u2019t it? But Arthur immediately called out to the camera operator, \u201cKeep rolling,\u201d and then he gave me my first revelation of what it means to be an \u201cactor\u2019s director\u201d. While the camera was rolling, he said, \u201cGene, just because I say \u2018Action\u2019, doesn\u2019t mean you have to start acting \u2013 it just means that we\u2019re ready. I could see you had something cooking inside, but you weren\u2019t ready to act yet. Film is cheap. Keep working on whatever you\u2019re working on and start acting when you\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scene went very well.<\/p>\n

When we took a break, the assistant director came up to me and said, \u201cDon\u2019t get used to what just happened \u2013 you\u2019re not going to find many directors who work like Arthur.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nA moment taken out of a crazy shooting schedule, cast, crew, everyone standing around waiting – Mr. Arthur Penn took the time to gently steer a new actor in the right direction, let him off the hook (as in: You’ve already been cast, you’ve already proven yourself, you don’t need to do that here<\/em>), and give him a tiny pointer on how to work, how to BE on a set. Generosity personified and certainly something Wilder never forgot.<\/p>\n

Rest in peace, Mr. Penn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obituary here. Bonnie and Clyde, a landmark in so many ways. I am right now tearing through Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, Peter Biskind’s biography of Warren Beatty, so it’s all very close to the surface for me. In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,23],"tags":[1684,299],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28126"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104306,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28126\/revisions\/104306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}