On Jun 10, 2007, at 11:38 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:
Can't say I ever quite grokked what the Method method was
all about. Whatever it's about, though, sure seems to have
produced a lot of great acting.
Probably a lot of divorces and breakups, too.
And that's the result of the acting method they use? Doubtful. More
like they take themselves so seriously they can't handle it when
somebody else doesn't. Don't know if I'd want to lay responsibility
for that with anyone but the people themselves. They could all have
presumably chosen a different path to get to the same goal.
And I believe Olivier was divorced at least twice.
I mean, once...way back when, Meryl Streep lived with Al Pacino.
Can you *imagine* that apartment if they were both
Method actors (Pacino is, I don't know if she is)
playing heavy roles in different plays or films? :-)
Well, Pacino has never been divorced (never been married, to my
knowledge at least) and Streep has been successfully married for almost
30 years.
And actually, I have heard that Streep does *exactly* that during
filming, stays in character take after take until the director calls
for a long break or the day wraps. And now that I think about it, it
does make a certain amount of sense to not break your concentration if
you're going to have to get right back in character. Undoubtedly
somebody of Olivier's stature, at the point in life he had reached,
might not any longer see things that way and wouldn't mind letting his
guard down. Would be interesting to know what he was like 30 years
before that, though. Bet he was a whole different person.
In the clip,
Nicholson never moves from the chair between takes.
But in between each take he's Just Jack, telling jokes,
laughing with people on the set. And then, like Olivier,
the director calls for the next take and like that!, in
a split second he's back in character as Jessep.
Quite a thing to see.
Nicholson almost never takes himself very seriously, as far as I can
tell. He's always got that twinkle in his eye and that way of forming
an almost instant bond with the audience. He's always pretty much just
Jack, which is a big part of what, IMO, makes him great.
Sal
