(Je veux être actrice. In it a ten-year-old girl, who wants to enter the world of acting, listens to philosophies of the field from a series of well-seasoned — and, rather amusingly, apparently all male — actors.)
At any rate, an actor* asks: If someone put a dog on a stage, and then placed the greatest actor in the world beside the animal . . . which one would the audience look at? It's a rhetorical question.
Ils regardent le chien. Parce que le chien: il est. Il est dans son être, il est innocent. Il sait pas qu'on regarde. Alors il se comporte comme s'il était dans sa niche. [Peut-être il?] regarde les gens. Mais, tu vois, il n'est pas en train de fabriquer quelque chose. Ça, c'est très important.
It reminded me greatly of the Drama class I had in school. There a main obstacle to acting well seemed to be that acting naturally comes much harder than acting theatrically and imitating tropes that we've seen elsewhere, on television or wherever. But the effect of acting theatrically is generally so hair-raisingly bad that one is forced into trying something else and hoping to improve. (And if I hadn't acted so lousily myself — to be fair, having been a fine actor might have made the field fascinating too — I don't think it would have fascinated me as much as it does.) Of course I think one might be very theatrical without acting badly or artificially, if one has the temperament and taste to carry it off; but perhaps the aim is really to find one's 'niche.'
Another reason why it interested me, too, at this time, was because I've read a little of Charlotte Rampling's remarks about Oscar nominations. It's not entirely relevant, but I was wondering why she believes that Oscar nominations are an index of fine acting instead of a snapshot of moviegoers' tastes — even if those moviegoers are Hollywood professionals. There have been enough venerable compeers (and critics) who have thumbed their noses at the awards, because they didn't find them very meaningful as a measure of personal talent or effort. If acting is being, of course it is difficult, even if one is an evenhanded critic and has managed to find a handful of the genuinely 'best' actors in a particular cinematic year, to reward some of these for being better than the next actor. In a similar train of thought, perhaps, Alan Rickman once said that roles and not actors are rewarded. (Or maybe he was tilting at the scant complexity of the public's tastes.) **
From: "Un nouveau film du cinéaste belge entre fiction et réalité." (YouTube: TV5MONDE.) January 20, 2016.
Another reason why it interested me, too, at this time, was because I've read a little of Charlotte Rampling's remarks about Oscar nominations. It's not entirely relevant, but I was wondering why she believes that Oscar nominations are an index of fine acting instead of a snapshot of moviegoers' tastes — even if those moviegoers are Hollywood professionals. There have been enough venerable compeers (and critics) who have thumbed their noses at the awards, because they didn't find them very meaningful as a measure of personal talent or effort. If acting is being, of course it is difficult, even if one is an evenhanded critic and has managed to find a handful of the genuinely 'best' actors in a particular cinematic year, to reward some of these for being better than the next actor. In a similar train of thought, perhaps, Alan Rickman once said that roles and not actors are rewarded. (Or maybe he was tilting at the scant complexity of the public's tastes.) **
From: "Un nouveau film du cinéaste belge entre fiction et réalité." (YouTube: TV5MONDE.) January 20, 2016.
* I think he's Denis Podalydès.
** "Parts win prizes, not actors." From "11 of Alan Rickman's best quotes," (Entertainment Weekly) By Mary Sollosi. January 14, 2016.
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