Method or Madness?

When it comes to acting, I’m not a fan of “The Method”. While I sort of agree with the concept of it, the fact is that I think it has hurt American acting (especially) more than it has helped. This isn’t a new opinion, either. Even in my youth, I was immediately weary of the type of acting that resulted from the Method.

I know many people vehemently disagree with me, but I’m not at all impressed by the likes of Brando, Steiger, Pacino, DeNiro, Penn, and scores of others trained to find some similar sorts of truth. What kills it for me is that however “honest” their performance is, I can see them acting. Or, more to the point, overacting. And that’s just what we see in the finished product. Never mind the crew hours that get wasted as some actor works to get into character and will fly into a venomous tirade if someone breaks their hard-won concentration.

There is another school of acting that is popular outside of the United States that is basically about pretending. You learn how to use your body, your face, your voice, your timing to convey the human condition on the surface. Little of this inner turmoil stuff. It’s reasoned that you are only looking at the outside so if it’s convincing then the job has been successful. The wonder of this sort of theatrical training is that an actor can bounce from joking with the crew to being in character in moments.

There is a famous anecdote that floats around Lawrence Olivier (not method) and Dustin Hoffman (method). Writer William Goldman related it this way:

One day on the sets [of Marathon Man] Olivier noticed Hoffman looking beaten, haggard, weak. Worried, he turned to director Schlesinger and asked what had happened. And the director replied that there was nothing wrong, Hoffman had deliberately not slept for couple of days and not eaten because it was Hoffman’s way to prepare for a scene that called for him to look that way. Amused and astonished, Olivier snapped back: “Hasn’t the dear boy heard of acting?”

Of course there is more to it than that. You do still have to understand a character and eir[[daggerto]] motivation and stuff, but not to the point of making yourself crazed or making the people around you seriously consider homicide. I’m reminded of some simple acting advice humorously given by George Burns:

To be a good actor all you have to do is listen. In that first scene when Dick Benjamin opened the door and said to me, “Hello, Mr. Lewis, come on in,” I went in. Now that’s good acting! If I had stayed out in the hall, that’s bad acting.

See, here’s the deal: when I’m watching a film or a television program, I don’t want to be pulled out of a scene by someone’s “great” acting. That, to me, is the definition of poor acting. With many, if not most, strong adherents to the Method, I’m mostly seeing self-indulgence. I’m also getting a lot of too-long pauses as they work the emote factor. Just act, for Pete’s sake. Pretend. Get the bloody hell on with it.

But hey, I’m aware that I march to the beat of a different bagpiper on many issues, so maybe this is just my hangup. Or, perhaps people are calling these lovers of Method “great” because they’ve just been told about how great they are.

To be fair, there are quite a few non-method actors that are just as bad. They are mechanical, think that the voice can compensate for a lack of kinesthetic awareness, and are confident in themselves simply because they found the perfect hat for the character.

On the whole, I just want to see a lot less indulgent introspection and a little more of the mach schau (make show). I’m not saying to give up totally on trying to add an “honest” realism to the character, but that it should only be used when necessary. To again touch on the wisdom of George Burns: “Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Like many things in life, it’s about balance. I don’t think that having raw emotion drip off the screen has been all that helpful (plus, it’s a pain to get the stains out of the carpet), but the overly physical style of the theatre is also frequently so barren of passion that dust devils have been known to skitter across the stage. Combine the two, with the lesser being the Method, and you can end up with acting that’s actually watchable. Or, more to the point, transparent.

While some overseas actors have come to embrace the Method, many still have not. Conversely, it might be hard to swing a dead cat (or even a very live and annoyed cat) in Hollywood or NYC and not hit a method actor (or a student of same). Have you noticed how much praise (and awards) is lauded on these non-American actors for their work in both movies and television? Do you start to see a connection?

Has the Method ruined American acting? While I can’t give an enthusiastic “Yea” to that, neither can I even consider issuing forth a “Nay”. I’ll leave it for the jury to decide.