Action and Emotion

As my twitter followers will know, Gerard, Dan and I attended a Cinematheque screening of RoboCop at the Aero a few Fridays back. Peter Weller was in attendance, and he had some very interesting things to say about how acting theory has changed over the last ten years. Since that time, I’ve been reflecting on what he said – and it’s made me conscious of some very important issues.

Peter Weller is a Meisner-trained actor, and I’m a big proponent of all the Meisner fundamentals. Like all modern acting theory, Meisner flows from Stanislavski and is focused on giving the actor an objective, rather than a feeling. By pursuing that objective with truth and openness, the actor has an experience that the audience can share.

Those are the basics, but Peter Weller focused on the specific issue of props and action, and how it relates to emotion in life. Young actors today, according to Weller, are bent on exploring the emotion of a given action. If an actor is confessing something, the actor gets a close-up so we can see how vulnerable they are. If the actor is shooting someone, the actor gets another close-up so we can read the tension and conflict in their face.

This style of performance, in my opinion, has become even more pervasive since the Matrix hit theaters. Nowadays, we’ve gotten so accustomed to watching intense action in slow motion that the actor is given the opportunity to express the emotion of an intense, complicated, quick action in a beat-by-beat format.

When we play music beat-by-beat, we consider it elementary. When we recite poetry beat-by-beat, it’s boring. Why would anyone think acting is different?

Part of the reason Brando is considered the best of the Meisner actors is that he used action, compulsively, to conceal emotion. In the middle of a scene, he’d start fiddling with props just to change the visual subject matter. By redirecting our attention, Brando actually acknowledges the presence of his emotions in a much more realistic, truthful way. At the same time, he doesn’t make them transparent.

Why do actors like props so much? Why do we like watching actors smoke in movies? Those tools give them a way to redirect the focus of the scene in a way that tells us they’re FEELING SOMETHING, without spelling out what it is in Kindergarten terms. How do we know they’re feeling something? When we feel something, we use the same misdirections. On a basic level, we understand what they’re doing.

What’s more, by hiding that feeling with busywork, they give the scene more dimension. As audience members, we get caught up in the action of the busywork… and the true emotion of the scene becomes more of an undercurrent. Sometimes that undercurrent is blatant and obvious, and other times it’s subtle – that’s what creates the emotional ebb and flow of the film. At the same time, it should never be reduced to one dimension.

Weller commented that “Young actors today are always waiting for the close-up.” He’s right. Maybe more and more untrained actors are showing up in Hollywood, and maybe we’ve lost something in the educational system. Either way, I’m very grateful for the observation.

On small films like Sam Bailey, having those layers is critical to the film’s creative and financial success. On larger movies it’s the difference between having a movie people will watch, and having a movie people will love.

Thank you, Peter Weller. I owe you one.