The Great Recession: American Movie Acting Today

September 8, 2016 12:45 PM

Film acting is built from the very stuff of social life: norms of behavior, standards of interaction and communication, communally legible gestures, and personality tropes and dynamics. But if this poses a challenge for the critic, it’s also the reason acting styles, taken in the aggregate, are such unusually good barometers of cultural modes, themes, and ideas, whether they respond to prevalent motifs or are generated themselves.
posted by felix grundy (17 comments total)

The author of the piece, Shonni Enelow, also discussed this topic on the most recent episode of the Film Comment Podcast.
posted by Awkward Philip at 1:10 PM on September 8, 2016

I agree.
posted by Postroad at 1:46 PM on September 8, 2016

Really terrific article, I've had this pet theory that if you really pay attention to actors inTV or film you'll notice all the little gestures they make real people don't naturally make. But the connections the author draws are far deeper in terms of social critique.

One question I have is how comprehensive her analysis is. The only movie discussed there I've watched is Hunger Games, definitely the sense of neo-Stocism and "coping" behavior is portrayed in the axting there. But how general is her argument, e.g. is it as simple as the difference between Method acting vs this new style/affect? Etc.
posted by polymodus at 2:04 PM on September 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Its an interesting read. But to what extent are the representation of these more withdrawn roles coming from the actors as opposed to their directors? A number of these films call for more withdrawn roles rather than a Marlon Brando or a Lee Marvin in full effect. Obviously the actor has to deliver and there are very fine performances in some of the named films but surely the selection of character is influenced by others involved in the film? The article even notes that Lawrence was picked for Hunger Games on the back of Winter's Bone (and you could make a case that Mara was channelling Rapace on Dragon Tattoo also). Why are there an increasing number of roles (as opposed to performances) like this? Its possible to name others though, Alicia Vikander for one has turned in some good roles is in this style and has also slipped from the indie to the blockbuster. I guess the reasons are the same even if the focus might be wider than just the actor.
posted by biffa at 2:07 PM on September 8, 2016

Great stuff. I'll have to look up more Enelow. This is a rich mine of ideas I'd bet. Makes me wish I knew more about acting theory.

The theory certainly holds for Isaac in 'Inside Llewyn Davis'. He's the old one of the batch of actors discussed, a kind of upper bound on this generational difference. Even accounting for the Cohen affect of detachment, Davis's character is particularly hard to discern.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 2:42 PM on September 8, 2016

The author leaves out the single greatest difference between acting today versus acting in the past: digital instead of film. Lawrence didn't need to move her face very much because digital captures every breath.
posted by Ideefixe at 4:45 PM on September 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ideefixe has it. I was sitting here with my mouth agape (figuratively speaking, in real life I didn't move my mouth very much at all, as shown by the imaginary camera I have on me at all times) going "but... isn't that... screen acting?"

I mean, it's a fundamental rule of screen acting that the camera works around you, and the more precise the camera the harder you have to refrain from gurning and flailing and yelling all over the set.
posted by tel3path at 4:56 PM on September 8, 2016

Silent film actors were quite subtle, compared to their stage counterparts. Earlier television shows shot on video, seldom used close-ups, and even today, allows actors to be broader than on film. But digital on huge screens can show blood rushing through an actor's veins.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:17 PM on September 8, 2016

A good recent example of this is Kristen Stewart in Cafe Society--she seems to be so much more subtle than her co-stars, and even the scenery, I think, because the film was the first digitial production (Sony F65 4K) for both Woody Allen and Vittorio Storaro.
posted by Ideefixe at 5:43 PM on September 8, 2016

There's always been a spectrum of acting styles on film.

Alice Guy, who was possibly the first film director ever, had a well known stage direction was "Act Natural," and a lot of her films really do have a much more modern style to them than most films of that time. Louise Brooks used to get shit from critics for her naturalistic style, as opposed to the more common melodramatic style at the time. Robert Bresson took it further and told his actors not to act at all. (He called his actors models.) Then later, Jim Jarmusch did a lot of that as well. I'm sure there are plenty of others, but I was trying to find an example from every 20 years or so.

The change in technology can probably account for some toning down, but there are also stylistic choices involved.

I hadn't really noticed a major trend toward that more understated acting style, but I probably wouldn't because I'm not a reviewer and I don't watch movies as they come out like reviewers do. But I have noticed a lot of people who think that that stoic acting style is just bad acting. I know I've seen that a lot about Kristen Stewart in particular.
posted by ernielundquist at 5:53 PM on September 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

That was an excellent article. Though perhaps a touch too ready to draw larger cultural conclusions than are warranted overall.

I find the thesis compelling and wouldn't want to automatically dismiss it there being a cultural shift in reaction to the everyday, but I think there are other factors involved that make that less than a clear causal relationship.

The move to digital may be one added factor, but the change in convention also comes from change in screenwriting and in simple reaction to previous acting conventions. If you want to be noticed on screen when other actors are emoting heavily, doing little serves as a noticeable distinction and can draw the eye. That was something Steve McQueen was accused of on a few occasions, irritating his some of his fellow actors who saw it as scene stealing.

In a general sense, popular films are so heavily action and plotting dependent that the smaller scale emotional moments don't fit easily if they are pitched at a high level of emotion. Minimal affect acting stands out against the big visual events on screen as a notable difference and often as more fittingly "heroic" than bigger emotional response might given the situation. It isn't realism, though its often touted as such, though to her credit not by the author of the linked article, it's a kind of stoicism not too removed from that often claimed for stars like Randolph Scott or John Wayne. When that kind of genre filmmaking is so dominant, then it can create a sense of conventional expectation for what constitutes "normal" or real emotion on screen. The audience grows to see anything outside that narrowed range as excessive or, at the least, unusual. The controversy or split opinions on Daniel Day Lewis's acting, for example, can testify to that.

Along with that there has been a trend to tone down, limit, or remove a lot of the previously more common "big" emotional moments from films in the writing/ planning process, in part due to the movies being made and in how they are marketed worldwide, and likely in part due to these vary trends. Movie writing has been increasingly minimized as a partner in the film process in many areas, where its now more about scene setting, plot and concept than it is about involving dialogue that might allow for more breadth of expression. That isn't a universal of course, sometimes it is a conscious choice to pare down emotion such as in some of the films the article mentions like Carol.

In these latter cases, I suspect, one can see the growth in influence of directors like Bresson and Ozu, where emotional affect was always minimal, but the films were no less powerful for it once one attuned themselves to the style. In this area changes in directorial preferences might be seen as following a like pattern of response to previous directors. Where Scorsese, for example, might go big, those following him might instead go small to set themselves apart from their immediate fore bearers. Such is the nature of changing styles in art.

Still though, the suggestions the article raises can't be brushed off as meaningless either. That such performances resonate more now than in some eras past, though minimal affect performance has never been absent, is perhaps a sign of some cultural need as well as technological shifts and normal evolving of convention. It's a thought worth pursuing, especially since, as the author noted, acting hasn't received the level of critical attention it deserves. Something which is itself worth thinking about given the importance movie stars are thought to have in reception to the films.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:43 PM on September 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

That kind of delicacy is technically difficult, and given the opportunity to pull off a minimalistic tour de force people will take it.
posted by tel3path at 3:12 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

My read on the article is that the author's interest in the phenomenon wouldn't be undercut by adding technical considerations—I think gusottertrout's comment nails the approach, which is to ask why these performances are valued right now, and tracing the ways in which they're becoming more prevalent. The focus is on acting (and to a lesser extent story) because she's interested in tracing a change in style there, and offering a rich set of examples.

I love all the minute analysis but I also agree that the huge gestures at cultural change go a bit too far—like Sean Penn in Mystic River in the middle of an otherwise subtle read. When I read the article I was thinking about strands in film noir as an obvious precursor—Bogart throwing Mary Astor over at the end of The Maltese Falcon, e.g., and how this buried commitment to his dead partner never surfaced in any of his actions or responses earlier in the movie, which we accept as a matter of hidden depth rather than inconsistent character development. Post noir films like Le Samouraï and The Long Goodbye already took this inscrutability to what seemed like a limit—and Alain Delon in Le Samouraï could be a touchstone for any performance mentioned in the article—so I see what she describes as a continuation rather than a sea change.

One could also think of films like Jeanne Dielman as precursors in another lineage (although melodrama and noir have deep similarities) and I think that begins to suggest an answer to why digital's capacity to capture microgestures seems to have been seized upon as an aesthetic capacity rather than just a fact that requires exquisite makeup and facial control—it adds new resources for making quietness compelling, something that we were already interested in, but that hadn't been able to be put forward in just this way. So again, the technical advances make something possible but wouldn't in themselves explain why that possibility is interesting to us, even preferable to other, still available styles.
posted by felix grundy at 8:21 AM on September 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yes, and it should, I suppose, be mentioned that technology hasn't just changed the way films are being made, but how they are being watched, which is another thing Hollywood is aware of. Watching movies on ever smaller devices changes the impact of various phenomenon happening onscreen. What might look acceptable on a big screen may not "feel right" on a laptop.

The influence of what some call CCC or contemplative cinema, and what I refer to as the cinema of ambience has also noticeably grown. Movies where place or atmosphere matters as much as character and can act as something of a substitute for character development. Popular movies have adopted that into their repertoire of effects. Think, for example, of how the sixth Harry Potter movie had Harry and his pals spend a considerable amount of time camped out in the forest. While significant events occurred, the tone of the setting served as much to define the character moments as the discussions they had. The concept of the quiet before the storm isn't at all new, but the way it was handled seemed to be influenced by more atmosphere driven films.

Again, it's the visuals taking over for dialogue or putting the emotion into the dialogue, something of which might be said for Winter's Bone as well. Jennifer Lawrence doesn't need to emote if the film is doing that work for her in a way. To do more can risk overdramatizing the point and making it seem too obvious or ridiculous. It's similar to how one might have the main actor of a film be restrained emotionally, while the supporting characters are more assertive, think of Mad Max: Fury Road for a popular example. The difference is what's important, so just focusing on the star of a film can be misleading in judging changing styles of acting.

I shouldn't drag this out too long I suppose, but I also think in speaking of cultural effects of pared down emotional response in film one might question the meaning from other angles. For example, is this a broadening of masculine affect? Where the positive value associated with some views of masculinity traditionally embodied by "tough" make heroes onscreen is now growing to be viewed as a positive for women to adopt, where "toughness" as a alleged virtue is going to be viewed from the perspective of a flawed masculinity? (Again perhaps think of Fury Road or the films the author mentions.) There is something troubling in that, both in the demand for toughness as a primary virtue and in the particular way it is dramatized, where shutting down emotions is the most admirable act. It's something that needs more examination and contextual study I'd think.

As was mentioned though, any talk of larger cultural shifts needs to better define what's being talked about as well as what that might imply. There are a lot of movies being made, not all of them have actors following this route, so selection of films and discussion of who they are appealing to is important. I mean the people watching Carol are not necessarily the same as blockbuster audiences who watched Avengers: Age of Ultron, or specialty audiences who watched Hateful Eight, neither of which fit the mold being discussed in the article.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:28 AM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, and regarding micro-expressions, there aren't just the domain of exceptionally restrained performance or digital films either. They are perhaps somewhat more common in complete performances, but they've also been hallmarks of some popular actors throughout the decades, even if they haven't been spoken of as such.

I have some feeling women may be more attuned to these kinds of expressions more than men if one can judge by the popularity of the films and stars who have, to my eye, made exceptional use of that quality. Just to pick one modern star as an example, Jennifer Aniston has a notable variety of effective micro-expressions she uses in her work that helps her stand apart from those she shares the screen with or other stars headlining films. She is particularly adept at suggesting a rapid series of emotions to an event which can inform audience understanding of what she then says, freeing it from a single direct meaning which the character see is speaking to might hear, to a more open one which the audience can infer as informing the dialogue. It's a trait she shares with Irene Dunne and which other actresses have had their own sort of versions of, some more noticeable than others.

(Think of Meg Ryan's frequent reliance on starting to reply to something being said, stopping, and doing a sort of verbal double take before returning to or taking up a different conversational path. She'll start talking by looking off away from the person she's speaking with as if her thoughts are already formed "over there", then catch herself as if the words she's heard only now are becoming clear, turn to the person speaking and stutter, look away and back, then follow the newly informed conversational path. That's bigger than a micro-expression, but it's rapid enough that it works in much the same way. Aniston's version of that is often entirely non-verbal and done just by shifting her eye line and raising a brow or tightening her facial muscles. It makes both actresses seem entirely involved with what their costars are saying in ways a lot of actors can't do.)
posted by gusottertrout at 9:52 AM on September 9, 2016

I am one hundred percent here for a discussion of affect and masculine/feminine virtues—that's part of the wide area my melodrama/noir parenthetical was gesturing toward. Of the movies discussed in the article, I think that Winter's Bone/Lawrence and Carol/Mara are far apart on the masculine toughness scale, even though they read as close on the recessed affect scale. (Which just shows that there's more to discuss here.)

Regarding the point about consideration of audience: agreed, and I think that's one of the promising threads in the article that I just wanted to have expanded with more examples—the idea that this style is appealing not just in more self-consciously highbrow movies but in big budget stuff like Hunger Games, too, and that this overlap has genuine cultural weight. Are there, say, a set of actors from, say, 15 years ago who moved fluidly between independent and studio pictures because they could switch affect in a way that other actors couldn't, and in exactly the way that this set doesn't need to?
posted by felix grundy at 1:41 PM on September 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes, I agree with you and the author about Mara's character in Carol using emotional distance as more of a way to move away or even hide from those she's around rather than as a form of resolute "toughness" in the more traditional manner. That doing so tends to evoke more masculine traditions is itself interesting and not without something like a subtext. In much the same way that Far From Heaven used "The perfect television family" as a comment on television at the time the film was made as well as a comment on "ideal" family life. Mara's emotional reserve can be understood in more than one way in that sense perhaps.

Hard to say whether there were actors more fluent in affect switching since it seems there are still a number of them around, but it seems to be mostly actor's actors that get the chance to do it, not the bigger stars who might hurt their brand by trying different styles. Viggo Mortenson is possibly the biggest current name that shifts affect regularly depending on whether he's working on something like Hidalgo or Lord of the Rings compared to maybe Jauja or Eastern Promises. He's always somewhat more reserved than some other similarly talented actors, like maybe Ed Harris, but there seems to be a clear idea of affect as meaning rather than simply an innate characteristic, which may be the case with some other stars who don't or can't shift between character types as easily. That's some speculation though since its always hard to know what can or can't be done if we haven't had any proof.

I completely agree, by the way, on your link between noir and what we tend to refer to as melodramas, or women's pictures. It often seems to come down to who has to make the sacrifice, the man or the woman, in saying which is which. Pain as a audience identifier essentially.
posted by gusottertrout at 2:49 PM on September 9, 2016