Has the death of the 'movie star' led to better acting?
Ben_Caesar
Posts: 307 Forum Member
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I think it has. Some people look back at acting of old, especially with regards to the so called 'golden era of Hollywood' with nostalgia and I'm like, WHY? Acting was awful back then, so overly dramatic that they'd often ruin the overall movie. Not that many quality movies were ever made then since these 'movies' often revolved around the ego of the 'movie star' and their so called charisma that story and characters were an afterthough.
Since Brando and ESPECIALLY the likes of De Niro, Streep and Pacino (though Pacino admittedly has winged it after Scarface...) acting has become so much better. Especially with regards to British acting where once upon a time pretentious 'theatre' acting was the be all and end all. Now the likes of Oldman, Hardy, Day-Lewis and Fassbender are widely regarded as the best of their generation.
The so called 'charisma' of the classical Hollywood actor in those days, it's never done it for me. Now you're actually required to act to fit a particular character instead of a character fit your ego. The likes of Clark Gable, Humprey Bogart, Laurence Olivier, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy and all these guys that some nostalgically look up to, they were never good actors.
I'm glad the idea of the movie star is dying. Film is primarily a directors medium, not for the actors ego.
Since Brando and ESPECIALLY the likes of De Niro, Streep and Pacino (though Pacino admittedly has winged it after Scarface...) acting has become so much better. Especially with regards to British acting where once upon a time pretentious 'theatre' acting was the be all and end all. Now the likes of Oldman, Hardy, Day-Lewis and Fassbender are widely regarded as the best of their generation.
The so called 'charisma' of the classical Hollywood actor in those days, it's never done it for me. Now you're actually required to act to fit a particular character instead of a character fit your ego. The likes of Clark Gable, Humprey Bogart, Laurence Olivier, John Wayne, Spencer Tracy and all these guys that some nostalgically look up to, they were never good actors.
I'm glad the idea of the movie star is dying. Film is primarily a directors medium, not for the actors ego.
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then there's johnny depp , leo dicaprio , Robert Downey (Iron Man was a hit because he was in it ) .
a star will dictate the budget of a film too .
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It's similar to art, sometimes the objective isn't to try to be as realistic as possible. It depends on what you're trying to do.
I don't know, if some of it is down to the casting process - just figuring out what an actor is capable of, etc.
I suppose that with modern media, the old idea of a Hollywood star is dead - as well as the fact of the old studio system. An actor has to be a bit more versatile in the roles that they play nowadays. Plus - I think that the idea of having a big name star in a movie to help out with its box office performance, is by and large dead. The last star capable of doing that was Tom Cruise. I think, what with the internet, trailers, and other publicity about a film is just so readily available. To some extent, we moved on back towards the directors doing that sort of thing(recent example would be Chris Nolan with Interstellar). I think people tend to perhaps go to the cinema for a Spielberg, Tarantino or Scorsese film - rather actors nowadays.
Well those are the notable exceptions, the 'dying breed' if you will. Actors names alone would open a movie to box office success. Tom Cruise, whilst being the biggest movie star on the planet for the last 20 years, even he's not immune to making a dud. I acknowledge his star power did get the Jack Reacher role (though I'm shocked he's even go back to that 'character', the first movie sucked...). DiCaprio and to a lesser extent Depp often cross the boundaries of the 'movie star' and being genuine actors I think.
Generally speaking, it's all about franchises (Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, Middle Earth etc) now and to a lesser extent, the directors names (Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan, Fincher...).
Sure but often what actors of old did was to play themselves or to put it more politely, to emphasise their 'charisma'.
And all for the better I think. I think an actor (especially when he's allowed to fully delve into a character) is better appreciated now than even in the so called 'movie star' days. It should always be about story and characters first with the director godfathering the whole process. The actor is only a tool. The best actors IMO are the ones who realise this.
There was a major sea change in film acting styles in the 1940s, brought about by World War II, of course. Pre-war films often seem very hammy when I watch them. That is because movie making was nowhere near as developed as it is now. Actors, for the most part, had learned their craft in theatres and performed in front of the camera in much the same way. The concept of less being more had not really sunk in at that time. Since then, progress has been evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Today, we have actors who are well established in films, yet have never done a play. They don't carry that baggage, but they cannot benefit from it either. One of the drawbacks of the more modern style of acting lies in diction. In my opinion, too many modern actors do not speak anywhere near clearly enough, a nod to the aforementioned Marlon Brando, who was probably the biggest mumbler of them all. He has plenty of modern admirers who try to act as he did.
One encouraging aspect of modern film making, as has already been mentioned, is that an actor now seems to be required to be convincing in the role. That applies to Americans playing British parts and vice-versa. There was a time when the American star sounded resolutely American while the British supporting cast sounded British, even though they were all supposed to be the same nationality. American actors now seem to regard the ability to speak in a convincing British accent to be an important requirement on their CVs.
There's too much 'intense' acting a lot of the time I find these days. Drawn-out close-ups of actors faces contorting with wet eyes, just to show us (and possibly the Oscar panel) that They Know How To Act™. It's often way too obvious and mechanical I find.
For example German Expressionism with realistic acting would probably look rubbish.
It's not about actors of the past not being as good as actors nowadays, it's more about what is required of them and what acting style dictates the era.
There are plenty of bad actors around at the moment, and you also have to consider the amount of actors who came from theatre and what people were most used to seeing and wanted at the time.
Also consider the Golden Days of Hollywood when the musical was popular. The radio was still a big thing back in those days and a lot of musicals were made. To put very realistic acting in those types of films is another example where it would probably be a bad fit.
All that matters is that films deliver a 'truth' whether the acting style is realistic or not.
I've seen many great films from earlier decades and they have been what I'd call perfect. The acting is often different from the type of acting nowadays, but it isn't about standard it's about style. In some of those films the acting style of today probably wouldn't work as well.
Conversely I've seen many films in the era we're living in right now where the actors try to be realistic but the acting is dreadful.
To state that actors today are of a higher standard is like saying most actors today are great compared to the past. But we just know that isn't true at all.
Iron Man was a hit because it was a well done movie at just the right time with a new hero (to general audiences not comic book fans) who was played by the perfect actor for the role, everything came together it wasn't a hit just because of RDJ name, Marvel didn't even want him at first as they saw him as a liability, the director had to fight his corner to get him in it, it was the movie that made RDJ name a big thing as all though he was coming back into movies at the time he was recovering from being washed up and was not a bankable name at all even though some loved him, they were a small group, I guess you could say he was a indie kind of guy before Iron Man gave him a big hit that sent him into a higher level of recognition.
You're right. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000375/
All I roughly see is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Air America. I remember him in U.S. Marshals but it was a small role. Nothing really, really sticks out like Iron Man and Weird Science/Air America.
I agree with a lot of your post but not the bit I've highlighted in bold.
I don't think it was out of naivety that performances hadn't toned down, but that in the 1940s it was only about 10 years since silent cinema first dabbled with sound and studios were still making silent films well into the 1930s. The studios still had to cater to that audience.
In silent cinema 'less' would not have been more, it would have been invisible, the lack of spoken dialogue required more expressiveness through the acting performance. This would also be something most of the audience would have still been used to throughout the 1930s and expected. From there on I agree with you about evolution.
I'm sure that some studios would have liked to experiment more with different styles of performance, but they were still businesses who wouldn't have wanted to risk alienating their core audiences of the time.
I'm not taking anything away from RDJ , his performance was a 'movie star ' performance , it was full of charisma (something the OP was referring to re the old Hollywood stars ) .
RDj had already been a star in the 90s , he was always an actor that could do that kind of charisma , Favreau knew this .
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I agree about the franchises , but they're mostly controlled by the producers/studios more than the directors .
as for Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan, Fincher.. - they all seem fond of using star names in big movies , I wouldn't say they're in a 'realist' style . .
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But in terms of acting take films like 12 angry men, or to kill a mockingbird, or even angles with dirty faces.
If they were new films, the production would be different, the dialogue would be different, the direction would be different, but would the acting really be better than Fonda, peck or cagney?
Take mutiny on the bounty. I know and love the Trevor howard/Marlon brando version. I don't really know the laughton/gable version, but laughton's bligh was supposed to have been fantastic. How would they improve the acting in a new version?.
Generally I agree with the OP though about acting probably improving since the 70s (it's all subjective of course).
Prior to Iron Man, Less Than Zero and Chaplin were the stand outs for me.
As for the general thread topic, I think there will always be room for both types.
A lot of the older stars like John Wayne may not have had the best range but they were effortless in most of their roles and did what was required. They were larger than life but understood subtlety with their body language and facial expressions too. Martin Scorsese said for him Wayne's performance in The Searchers just gets better over time. And I agree. His expressions throughout speak more to me than a lot of these "method" actors around now where I feel as though they're giving a performance. Same goes for other older stars' performances back then.
I remember Paul Newman on the Jonathan Ross show saying if he could he'd do all his performances over again because they used to overact in the old days, and Ross said that's why so many of us like the older movies because they were larger than life and more enjoyable for it. I kind of agree with that too. A lot of performances and actors now feel very samey to me too. And many of them even though they have talent just don't have that certain something. That screen presence and charisma that makes the performance more memorable or the gives the movie an extra level of enjoyment.
I don't like modern films or their stars, I can't tell them apart. The stars of the Golden Age were all individuals, with a charisma and star quality that is missing today.
I doubt if I will ever visit a cinema again, thankfully I have enough Classic Movies on video and tape to last me for the rest of my life.
For me, acting should be larger than life, that is what made it so exciting, and why those days are looked on as the Golden age of the Cinema. I know many young people today who love old films, and envy the fact that I saw them all on the big screen the first time around.
Absolute tommyrot. There isn't anyone working in Hollywood today who can hold a candle to Montgomery Clift. Elizabeth Taylor was a movie star - but watch her in A Place In The Sun, to name just one, and she makes Meryl Streep look like Sarah Harding. Cary Grant - arguably the greatest movie actor of the lot. Clark Gable not a great actor? Did you ever see The Misfits, which he never lived to see? What about Bette Davis in All About Eve? The list is endless...
As for film being "a directors' medium", it was that auteur nonsense in the 1960s that started the rot in the first place. Directors, like set designers, composers and editors have bumped up their parts far too much in the past four decades.
I've just watched Pal Joey and High Society back-to-back in high def. Sinatra at his peak - and, oh, watch a joy it was to watch. I'm much too young to have seen them originally, but I'd rather watch films like that than anything playing at my local multiplex right now.
That really warms my heart to hear you say that.
Your previous post was spot on too, Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve is still a lesson in what great cinema acting is all about, as was Anne Baxter as Eve. I wonder how many of todays performances will stand up as well in 65 years time.
Spencer Tracy had spent 15 years in the theatre before he appeared in his first film. Laurence Olivier's incredible range in the theatre is known by anyone who was lucky enough to see him on stage, and yet he is being dismissed in this thread as not being able to act, all I can say is, watch him as Richard lll.
I don't agree with all of Irma's observations, but I do with a lot of them. Cary Grant was one of the greatest movie stars ever, but a great actor? Not so sure about that. It can be difficult to define because he wasn't a character actor. He tended to play himself, but he did it so well that it impossible to imagine anyone else in his roles. On the other hand, I would rate him much higher than another massive star who tends to play himself: Tom Cruise.
Having written that, there are some very fine actors around to day. One of my favourites is Jennifer Lawrence. She is a genuine character actor. Her most famous role, Katniss Everdene, is absolutely nothing like her. In other films, Winter's Bone for example, she is different again. What I particularly admire is her ability to emote. Just watch the very last shot in Catching Fire. It is a close-up of her face, and it tells a story all of its own, even though she does not utter a word.
I hear this a lot about Grant, but it's not true - or at least not pre-1955. After he came back from his "retirement" to make To Catch A Thief, it's certainly true that he played "Cary Grant" - and played it to perfection. By then, he knew he was a brand. But if we take six of his iconic roles pre-To Catch A Thief at random, we end up with six very different performances. For instance, what has Devlin, the spy he plays in Notorious, in common with David Huxley in Bringing Up Baby? Both are regarded as classic Cary Grant roles, but they are utterly different characters and performances. If that isn't the mark of a great actor, I don't know what is.
What we mean is they're playing the part we usually expect them to play. When they don't, we start saying they're miscast.