Why Does Acting Feel So Different Now? 

Check out some additional notes, a full bibliography, and further reading for this video: thomasflight.substack.com/p/why-does-acting-feel-so-different Get your free trial of MUBI: mubi.com/thomasflight

They're acting STYLES, which I think is really cool. I love old and new films, I love foreign films with different acting conventions... as long as the acting matches the style of the film and is part of telling a good story, I AM IN.

I mean, Gloria Swanson’s acting in Sunset Blvd was theatrical even for 1950. Her performance was more reflective of the silent era and early talkies. That’s one of the main points of her performance.

I think part of the reason that the new approach to acting has become the standard is the shift from stage to film. Theatrical acting often looks overwrought with the closeness of a camera. Presentational acting can get lost on a stage, but is perfect for the a camera.

Ian McKellan's issue that caused him to break down was less about the green screen and more about the fact that there were no other actors on set with him. He was acting by himself, in a green room, with blue Xs taped to sticks that were supposed to be dwarves around him. He had nothing to respond to except Peter Jackson woodenly reading the others' lines to him.

I love that John Garfield realistically “relaxing” on a couch blew people’s minds back in the day. “Damn, he really seems relaxed!” I honestly loved this video though.

Actor here! This was a great, well researched video. One thing I'd love to add is the idea of the "Actor's Toolbox". These days when you study acting, you learn about all of the various techniques and philosophies that you talked about, and we add all of that information into what we call the Actor's Toolbox. What this means is we have a broad base of knowledge that we can pull from depending on the needs of a specific character or production, because every role and collaboration requires something different.

This is why Nicholas Cage seems so out of place. He uses an older, theatrical style of acting, which a lot of non US countries still use, and it really stands out/clashes with the rest of Hollywoods acting.

As an actor...I'd say it was because back then it was just that....ACTING. I think now it's EMMULATING. A lot of the time, people want to see movies to escape their problems, not be reminded of them, so I think there's something to be said about the old style of acting and why old films have stayed relevant even when they are very "act-y" and why they can feel so comforting to people. Tho I do love when I am watching a movie and I'm like WAIT THAT WAS GARY OLDMAN?! (It's always Gary Oldman or Christan Bale lmfao gotta love Daniel Day Lewis too, but he does so few films that you know he's going to be in something. Gary Oldman just pops up and his acting is so impeccable that you don't even realize it's him!!! I love it)

It just took everyone but Orson Welles a while to realize that the camera and microphone were 4 feet from their face, and they didn't have to shout to the folks in the cheap seats anymore.

There's quite a gulf between immersive research and living as though you are a character. Practicing sign language to play a person who is hearing impaired, learning legal shop talk to play a lawyer, practicing tennis if you are going to play a tennis star, this is going to lend your performance natural authenticity. This is, to me, utterly different from demanding to be called the character's name and carrying your performance into your personal life. That being said, losing your own identity into a character for a while is kind of amazing, and I imagine the majority of people who do this do so in moderation and know how not to risk themselves or others.

Cate Blanchett's recent layered performance in Tar is probably the best lived in character I have ever seen. Without relying much on camera trickeries, edits, close ups while inhabiting the character completely. A true acting legend

It's funny that you keep using Sunset Boulevard as an example of classical acting because the whole point of that movie is that it's about an aging actress who is stuck in her old ways but the movie predates A Streetcar Named Desire.

My parents are acting teachers, so hearing the names Stanislavski, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and Uta Hagen again brought me back to sitting in on their acting classes

I'm a graduate of the Ned Beatty school of acting. "Read the script, do what it says." Saved me years and thousands on drama school.

During the 70's when realism started taking over all the old directors, executives and producers all said it was a horrible idea. That because people delt with real life every day they'd never spend money on a ticket to be entertained by it. Ever since then, with a few exceptions, melodrama has been looked at as a joke by the average moviegoer and most don't even realize that "over acting" style can still be deliberate. In fact I can recall watching *Before The Devil Knows You're Dead* with my parents (a melodrama) and they were confused by the whole thing. They kept asking each other "why did she make that face? What did he just do with his hands?" And it's a little ironic considering they grew up with old Hollywood. So most contemporary directors wouldn't even attempt it. Does that mean melodrama is now innovative and new? On the other hand you can definitely take real dialogue too far. Almost every person I've ever talked to about it said they had to turn on the subtitles to understand what was being said in The Revenant due to all the mumbling.

Konstantin Stanislavski really had a huge part to play in the move away from theatrical to more 'emotionally authentic' and truthful performance. Reading his book 'An Actor Prepares' within the context of when it was written really shows how Stanislavski was beyond his time. His idea was that true acting is true art and living the part as he put it was the best way to do so.

One reason I find Nicolas Cage so fascinating is that he offers an alternative acting model. Sure, he can do pure "naturalistic" acting and often does in his more acclaimed roles. But that's not his primary approach. He has an acting style he calls "nouveau shamanistic." It borrows elements from German expressionism and Japanese kabuki theater. The point is not to be realistic. The point is a kind of free, improvisatory expressiveness. Whether you like or dislike his acting choices, it's clear that he's not coming from a place of laziness or "bad" acting. He's making a deliberate creative choice, and it's deeply informed by his study of the history of acting.

I'm 29 and grew up watching old movies with my mom. I never questioned the acting in older movies and just saw it as normal for the type of movie/ story that was being told. It pains me when I see people my age or younger just assume all acting in "old "movies is bad and corny. They don't even bother getting into the story because they're hung up on the acting not being what they're use to which I just don't understand.

I always assumed it was because early actors hadn't internalized the difference between the screen and the stage. They were still acting like they would in a theater -- with over-enunciated dialogue and broad gestures designed to be understood by even the audience in the cheap seats. Movie directors also hadn't fully internalized this difference and so were unlikely to ask the actors to be more subtle. The art form is young, and with any evolving art form it takes a while to understand the unique properties of the form. The ability to do close-ups meant that even the smallest gesture could be conveyed to an audience. Similarly, you weren't having to project to be heard at the back of a theater, which meant that you could give a more dynamic vocal performance.

There's merit to both realism & expressionism. Some emotions can feel too overwhelming to keep down and we want someone to reflect it for us. I really love Vivienne Leigh's performance in Gone With the Wind (despite how that film has aged thematically) for how big and bombastic she portrayed Scarlet yet it "felt true".

Tom cruise is the consummate professional. Gotta admire his dedication to his craft. But, yeah, following his career from the beginning, my friends and I used to joke when describing his movies by calling them: "Top Pool Shark," "Top Brother," "Top Bartender," "Top Race Car Driver," "Top Irishman," "Top Vampire," "Top" Etcetera.

As an amateur voice actor myself this is interesting to me because most of the time voice actors are in isolation with their performances. In a way it's more pure form of acting. You have to really push imagination, to mentally put yourself somewhere, often no reacting to others. TV shows will play back other actors recordings if they've been done before, but many projects are done remotely, self directed, just given scripts and let go to send back at a moments convenience. It's a rare thing for all the actors in a scene to record together. Tho if you look at how they record Anime in Japan they do perform with each other as a norm.

17:35 That’s the key differentiator and why Strasburg would be troubled by the complete immersion. Strasburg wanted to build a utility belt that could be deployed, but taking that a step (or two or three) beyond means that you’re beholden to the whims and reactions of the character-who, yes, is traditionally an a**hole-and you’re yielding the professional control that an actor should maintain. It should all be just tools in the belt that you can deploy where appropriate. If they are just tools, you can bring them to bear without making everyone else on set miserable in the face of living with the monster you portray.

One of the reasons I love A Streetcar Named Desire was the duality of Vivien's and Marlo's styles. Viv, the classically trained actress, was old and past her prime. Marlon, the method actor, was young with his best days still ahead. The meta commentary is fascinating.

Thank you so much for this video! A lot of film buffs learn a ton about cinematography and a little about editing, lighting, scriptwriting, and some other things, but know so little about acting that they can't seem to even talk about acting at all. It's common, even in relatively educated film discussion spaces, for conversations about great acting performances to be boiled down to, "there's nothing of value to say about acting, aside from whether the performance works for the film or not." And that's so reductive that it could be said of any aspect of any artform. Of course the *most* important part of any artform, for the audience, is the final product. But the underlying questions of what goes into producing that art are important for understanding, discussing, and producing it. So kudos to you for doing the work to learn about acting, its history, and some of the techniques actors use, even including a scene breakdown! As you say, there are a lot of different techniques and approaches to acting, and as an artform, there is no one *right way* to do it. But there are a ton of tools for actors. Which tools an actor chooses to use comes down to which tools they have learned about or discovered for themselves, what they've experimented with and practiced, which of those tools the actor prefers, and what the desired outcome is for a given performance.

Some clarifications regarding Adler: 1) Stella Adler was most certainly NOT a student of Strasberg’s. In fact, Adler and Strasberg were students together at The American Laboratory Theatre, where Adler, Strasberg, and Harold Clurman (who would later marry Stella) studied the Stanislavski System for the first time with the Russian teachers (Boleskavski and Ouspenskaya) who remained after the MAT (Moscow Art Theatre) toured America. Stella Adler was an original founding member of The Group Theatre, together with Clurman and Strasberg. One thing that could have helped this discussion was how the actors, directors, and teachers who came out of The Group Theatre forever changed theatre, television, and film, particularly in America… the influence most don’t even recognize today. 2) Adler was born into an acting dynasty. The history of theatre in America actually starts with the Yiddish Theatre in New York first. Stella Adler’s acting family, headed by her father Jacob Adler and mother Sara Adler, were considered acting royalty. Stanislavski even knew of her father Jacob Adler’s famous performances and sought him out to discuss certain roles. So… Stella didn’t exactly have a normal childhood and had learned acting from her entire family and other Yiddish companies in New York - starting at 4 years old! By the time she joined The Group, Stella was already a trained and seasoned actress, with a couple of decades and hundreds of performances under her belt. 3) To say that Adler was all about the physical or external dealings of acting is an oversimplification and an overstatement. Adler taught in a very balanced and thorough way, unlike Strasberg. In fact, Adler’s most famous classes were her script interpretation classes in the 70s and 80s… they were world-famous, and packed with students, famous and not. Movie stars and working actors repeatedly came back to those classes with new students because no one, not even Stanslavski taught how to break down a script. Stella was quite unique in this regard. The fact that we even talk about characterization and script analysis today as we do is largely due to Stella’s classes. Strasberg and other teachers glossed over it. Adler held the playwright and their ideas up and gave it supreme importance. Our role as actors is to fulfill the big ideas of the text. This is why Adler was well-respected amongst all the great American playwrights of the time and had strong bonds with them: Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, etc. But the point is this: Adler taught everything. Much of script interpretation deals with finding psychology and themes (internals) and then making it doable. But Adler was intensely focused on creating a full character with immense realism and depth, internally and externally. 4) When Adler says not to read Stanislavski’s book, it is for a very good reason. Most of America had read the badly translated books of Stanislavki’s. It actually is very esoteric and is not very practical at all! Elizabeth Hapgood, the original translator of Stanislavski, cut out A LOT from the original books. She was not an actress and took a lot of literary liberties. What resulted was that the American English translation uses odd vocabulary and ideas that are wholly misinterpreted and twisted from Stanislavski’s writings… and are quite different from the original Russian and even the German translations. What the English speaking world received was a mess of a first book. Stanislavksi, up until his death, was still refining acting and teaching. He was quite against a fixed vocabulary and a “how-to” guide. To know more about this, seek out the work by Sharon M. Carnicke, an actress and teacher who speaks fluent Russian and has dedicated her life to setting the record straight, written a number of books and has taught on the topic, including Stanislavski’s fullest, most up-to-date teachings before his death. 5) Stella Adler was the only American teacher of that time to study directly with Stanislavski. They had spent time together in Paris, and Stella trained with him, clarifying everything that was being taught in America. At the time, his first, butchered translation of An Actor Prepares was not even published yet. Adler recorded her sessions with Stanslavski, together with a secretary and Harold Clurman. When they returned to America, The Group Theatre was riveted and relieved! So much was clarified. But Strasberg had a meltdown and had a famous falling out with Stella. Thereafter, Stella taught students at The Group Theatre the clearest, direct teachings from Stanislavski himself, and other students followed Strasberg. It was also then that Strasberg exclaimed, “I don’t teach the Stanislavksi System! I teach the Strasberg Method.” From there on, acting was infected with this “method” madness. At any rate… Stella’s work with Stanislavski was a revelation for the other actors. Most thanked Stella and went on to formulate their own unique systems for teaching and directing using Stella’s notes and recordings and charts, including Bobby Lewis, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, etc. 6) Finally, Adler’s own books were published after her death and assembled by journalists and editors. They have some powerful insights and principles that can inspire an artist indefinitely. But, as interesting as they are, they don’t represent the depth and scope of Adler’s in real, in-class teachings. As someone who was taught by Adler and continued studying with many of her protégés after her death, I can say that what the public thinks they know of Adler through her books. At best, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. At worst, people create all sorts of misunderstandings. I truly tried resisting commenting on this video essay, but I just couldn't sleep knowing that some information keeps keeping overlooked or misrepresented, once again in this method culture mythology. There is an inherent and perpetual risk in having people who are not fully trained, seasoned (decades) give all sorts of opinions about acting. It just gets further muddied and twisted. People on the inside for years and have trained with a number of these teachers know a different story. Reading some books on the history of theatre and cinema doesn’t even get close to what real crafts people know. There are more points of inaccuracies not relating to Stella Adler in this video essay, but it would take forever to pick them out one by one. It’s a good effort, but it’s still apparent that this is spoken not from the perspective of an actor, thoroughly trained, but from one who has read a few (particular) books on the topic. The art of acting, like other artforms - music, painting, writing - is far deeper and nuanced than this. I suppose I could sum up my stance by quoting the great poet Dame Edith Sitwell: “I have devoted my whole life to writing poetry… and I’m not going to be taught by people who don’t know anything about it… I mean, I don’t teach plumbers how to plumb.”

Hence, when Daniel Day-Lewis, Mark Strong, and Shia LaBeouf say, "I don't follow the Method," it's not a stubborn denial but simply the truth. They understand that true Method acting, as developed by Lee Strasberg and based on Stanislavski's system, is a specific technique which is UNRELATED to staying in character constantly. If I had to establish an official term for the acting technique used by Day-Lewis, Strong, and LaBeouf to end the decades-long confusion and misuse/misappropriation of the term "Method", I would suggest "Immersive Acting" or, as per LaBeouf's own words, "Escapism Acting." I think these terms better capture its nature of disappearing into vastly different roles, personalities and sometimes, even physiques. Alternatively, we could honor its original pioneer by calling it "De Niroism Acting." Personally, I categorize acting into 3 major types, 1) Representational/Theatrical Acting of the Golden Age Hollywood, 2) Strasberg's Method/Stanislavski System of the 50s to 70s Hollywood, 3) Immersive Acting/De Niroism Acting of 21st Century. Though I'm inclined to include a fourth type, which is the highly exaggerated Kabuki influenced style of acting that is pioneered by Nicolas Cage. Ethan Hawke said that Cage is the only actor since Brando to bring anything truly new and uncharted to the art of acting, while most actors just conform to the naturalistic based styles of either 2) or 3).

Agnes Moorehead (1900-1974) here commenting on the "Method" school of acting, "The Method school thinks the emotion is the art. It isn't. All emotion isn't sublime. The theater isn't reality. If you want reality, go to the morgue. The theater is human behavior that is effective and interesting."

Both acting is good in its own right.

Everyone has their own preference. Myself, I don't drop character 'til I've finished the DVD commentary.

An hour-long Thomas Flight video? Praise the gods!

Acting is so emotionally draining. It's a wonder how everyone keeps going in this profession. After going to college for Theater, I couldn't take how much emotion I had to put into it. It often left me depressed.

Personally, I prefer Classic Hollywood Films, partly due to the fact that I grew up with them since my infancy, but also because of the fact that you recognize that it is outside the realm of realism, hence the phrase “Only in the movies”.

"My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?" has got to be the coldest actors version of "bless your heart" I have ever heard. Taking this man's whole life and soul right out of him, damn.

as an aspiring actor, this video was very thought provoking and actually helped de-mistify some of the daunting challenges that, at times, make it feel impossible to achieve success in this industry. thank you for reminding us that acting and filmmaking is an art- not a science!

As an actor, I've had quite a few peers who employ grasping onto past experience for emotional reaction on stage. While it can result in incredible moments in a performance, these are also usually the most emotionally unstable people I've known. Also, the auto caption translated "relaxation techniques" into "relax Asian techniques" haha.

Brilliant overview and analysis of Stanislavki's influence on 20th century acting. (I know Chekhov was deeply grateful to Stanislavki for his sensitive productions of his plays. Chekhov married the actress who brought THE SEAGULL vividly to life, Olga Knipper). Much gratitude!

Just watched this amazing video in one go. Thank you Thomas. There are many people who enjoy presentational acting more than the representational and one of them is my dear mom. When I was spending time at home during the pandemic, I realized that the way she approaches to tv series or any kind of movie is very simple: She's already tired of housework and she just wants to watch something she wouldn't put a lot a lot of effort to understand. Presentation acting in general is easier to follow, it's filled with stereotypes that you'd recognize and say something like "Aha, this is the funny guy in the group and this one is the natural leader.". You don't need to carefully examine the characters and their "realistic" feelings like dilemmas, shame, guilt etc. I don't take it lightly, it's just the way it is. I believe the main reason behind the shift towards the representational acting is the socioeconomic changes in people's lives during the 20th century. Shorter working hours, proliferation of studying a college (hence more free time tbh), desk jobs and finally the rise of the television. We started to consume more content in the video form and got more critical at it. I'm a product of this and I don't treat movies like my mom. The "entertainment" is just a secondary goal for me at this point. I want to feel what the character feels. I want to feel the wind in my face. It's a damn serious business and it takes representational acting to satisfy me. Let me finish with this: One of my friends got married and have two kids now. Therefore he's living a more tiring life and has way more responsibilities than I do. I recently visited him at his house and saw him chuckling at "Police Academy" on tv. (It's still televised in Turkey time to time) This guy's favorite director during the college was Jean-Luc Godard.

Man, RU-vid is so lucky to have Thomas Flight. This is well-crafted, well-researched and perfectly presented. ~Chris

In many modern films actors “dramatically” whisper every line in a manner that makes it impossible to understand what they’re mumbling. Nothing “realistic” about it, just as there’s nothing “realistic” in the currently fashionable dark scene lighting. It’s merely a fashion that will eventually go away. Styles change obviously but within any style, any school of acting, there can be good acting and bad acting. The acting in Gone with the Wind is superb even if it’s not “realistic”. Again, there isn’t really any “realism” in art. What matters is whether or not the viewer is absorbed completely in the story and the atmosphere of a movie (or a stage performance).

Wonderfully nuanced analysis. The important part is CONNECTION

A. Those clips (The Maltese Falcon, Phantom Thread) are not so different. B. Look at period reviews: emotional authenticity WAS an expectation. '"It Happened One Night" is a good piece of fiction, which, with all its feverish stunts, is blessed with bright dialogue and a good quota of relatively RESTRAINED scenes.' (NY Times 1934). "The author would have been nowhere without the DEFT direction of Frank Capra and the SPIRITED and GOOD-HUMORED ACTING of the stars and practically most of their support." VARIETY C. Cagney is not a good example of type-casting, since he also did musicals and rom-coms. D. Bogart is quite different in THE MALTESE FALCON and THE BIG SLEEP. The similarities are due to the studio and the genre. It's nonsense to talk about him communicating hidden emotion in roles that don't call for it--except towards the end of THE BIG SLEEP, where the script calls for it, and he acquits himself quite well. The latter was poorly reviewed but did excellent box office: time has shown the critics were wrong and the audiences right. E. Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise when he does star parts. Moments in MAGNOLIA are star moments, and others more 'realistic.' F. You put Italian Neorealism out of order. This movement changed film acting in America. And since some of the actors who worked for Italian directors were American and NOT students of the Method, e.g., Broderick Crawford and Richard Basehart, you can't simply associate realism in acting with the Method. G. DeNiro STUDIED The Method in New York. Daniel Day Lewis did not STUDY the Method: he simply employed elements of it. H. Relatedly, PLEASE don't use "Method" to refer to any and all attempts for the actor to get real experiences similar to that of the character. This shows a total lack of understanding of what Stanislavsky did, wrote about, and taught. I. A Wikipedia article is not a psychological study. And a Wikipedia article with only two sources is not a good source. And generalizing about Method acting (which you don't even successfully define) is shoddy at best. J. Stanislavsky wrote three books on acting. If you want to know what the Stanislavsky Method was, you can read three books. That's not a lot to ask. And there are many other books detailing how the Method was adopted (and shunned) in the U.S. I'm not talking about Butler's book: I'm talking about books going back decades which it doesn't seem like you've bothered to look at. K. Garfield is different in FOUR DAUGHTERS because the CHARACTER is different. It cannot simply be put down to acting technique. Simply put: he's too good an actor to do what everyone else is doing when the character is from a different universe. L. Other scholars use "presentational" and "representational" exactly the opposite way Hagen does. M. Exercises are not acting. Strasberg developed those exercises for reasons. Once you can do what you need to do, the exercise is no longer needed. N. Stanislavski called his method "notes for moments of difficulty." The idea is NOT that you use a technique ALL THE TIME--say, in order to recall an emotion; rather, you might use that technique when the emotion does not come naturally from all the other work you and the actors and director have done to make the events of what's being acted specific and real. O. You're talking about what Stanislavski called the "method of physical actions," but I'm not sure if you're aware of that. That's from his third book.

I love your essays. It's hard to talk about acting without getting too abstract

As an actor myself (which I find most joy reading Stanislavsky’s and Hagen’s works), I love that you took the time to demystify the esoteric and conflicting aspects about how acting is perceived, taught, and understood. It can be so dense and exhausting for a multitude of reasons - but especially due to the mixing of the same terminology that can have entirely different interpretations, understandings, and overall application. Thank you for this video Thomas.

Acting Styles are so interesting. When creating a character you are studying the history of them in the story. Then you let go, trusting that the character history is still there. The big thing is the ability for an actor to listen to their scene partner. If an actor is actually listening and reacting truthfully based on what the other actor gives, you can see the truth unfolding. I think about James Dean in East of Eden. The scene where he goes to his father and cry’s after the actor rejects his money. Raymond Massy hated James Dean for choosing to cry instead of being angry which I believe is what the screenplay called for. When James Dean did the opposite, he made Raymond’s character look even more prideful and an asshole because in the truth of that moment, Raymond couldn’t help but feel like James was hijacking the scene. It’s what makes it sooo great!

I love this video so much! As an actress myself I've often thought there had to be difference between going method and using a method. But I've never heard anyone explain it as well as you have. I feel I've learned so much just watching this I can't imagine how long it took you to research this!

I always think about how "A Streetcar Named Desire" was like the turning point for acting in a good way, Vivien Leigh classical style vs Marlon Brando more realistic approach works wonders for that film. (lmao, maybe I should post my comments after the video)

So one school of thought is that emotion gives birth to action, and the other is that action gives birth to emotion. It reminds me of an argument I had with a friend over whether smiling produces happiness or being happy produces a smile.

This is the best video on this subject I've seen. I know the "Marathon Man" story is well known but I don't think I've seen it mentioned in another YT video. This is such a great analysis of the philosophy behind not just acting, but storytelling as a whole.

What you mention at the end about how representational acting is used today is super interesting. I think that David Lynch, who I somehow always come back to when watching your videos, uses this brilliantly in his work to create a sense of unease and dissonance exactly because we are no longer use to seeing this kind of acting and because it represents a bygone era that evokes many of the themes he is working with. And it can be used within a story as a way to represent the mental state of a character, such as Naomi Watts in much of Mullholland Drive, who doesn't have access to her own emotions because she is living out a fantasy.

I had trouble describing the "theatrical" acting for a while, but the explanation was right there in the word the whole time and I was overthinking it: it's literally just stage play acting 💀reminds me of the time late in my life where I finally realized "Oh Jeez" means "Oh Jesus"

This video is strengthened by the clips of interviews and scenes. It's easier to understand with all the examples. As someone who's studied some of these techniques I appreciate the video.Thank you for taking the time to put all this together.

50 minute Thomas Flight Video just in time for cooking dinner? I guess We are both cooking today

This is pretty inspirational. As a musician, I'm imagining how it applies to songs and performance, but also, as a filmmaker who works with different cultures it helps me recognizing that some of the people I work with may prefer representational acting over presentational...sometimes life is hard enough as is to have it shown back with complete realism.

theatrical is all over youtube thumbnails, it has found a niche

This video is so interesting and entertaining that I forgot how tired I am from working for a month straight

I don't understand why Gloria Swanson is on the thumbnail. Her character Norma Desmond is suppose to be theatrical, larger than life.

As a former acting student who is a currently working actor myself, this is hands-down the best video I’ve seen to explain “method acting” to people outside of this world. Very concise, very clear, very informative. Great job!

OMG, so I wasn’t crazy when I watched Streetcar Named Desire and thought “the actress seems like typical golden age of Hollywood acting and the actor seems like it’s half modern and half golden age"

I'm so happy this video was made! my film profs never focused on the intricacies of acting styles, so this is great to see!

It's very weird how Ben from Canada just pops into random videos unexpectedly. Hey Ben! Make your own videos!! We're tired of waiting and we're tired of being teased!

Actors in older films based their performance on showing a character that was entertaining and WORTH watching.

Acting doesn’t need to be realistic, you can give a good performance that is totally unrealistic

My acting prof in college taught us something similar to 'The System.' He called it "GOTE" - Goal, Obstacles, Tactics, Expectation. This made so much more sense to me than Method Acting, or actually becoming the character. It helps you come up with the emotion or tactics you would convey for the context of the scene and character, but it keeps your self separate from the character, especially if this is a character that would do things you would personally never do, and you don't have to immerse your personal self into something/someone else.

Another classic in the making!

Wow what a great video! I learned so much about acting. It all makes perfect sense now. In the early days before motion pictures when live stage plays in theaters were the standard of entertainment, larger than life performance was necessary. Being an actor in a play meant literally to act or pretend. The key word being pretend. The goal was not to be realistic. Plays were works of fiction, stories in which characters existed and behaved unlike people in real life. Audiences did not want to see a recreation of real life. They wanted to see something bigger and grander. This is what is known as theatrical acting. As an audience member in the live stage play era you knew the people on stage were acting due to their over-the-top performances. Nowadays, the audience is not supposed to be able to tell the cast in a movie are acting. In other words, actors don't act anymore. The goal of achieving realistic performance means the audience is not seeing an act or pretend emotion. They are seeing the cast experience real emotions on screen. The stories in modern films are fiction but the cast performances are real. The question now becomes do actors/actresses exist anymore? Why spend the money going to acting school when pretending emotion is no longer the objective? Actor/actress are old words that no longer apply in my opinion. If you cry in a scene, you are not acting. You are actually crying. Pretending to cry is acting. William Shanter is often made fun of and accused of overacting however his style of performance was perfect for the external type of acting used in the early days of Hollywood. With that said, Shatner never learned how to make the switch from theatrical acting to giving a performance grounded in reality.

Phantom Thread 😍

for me old films felt like magic i love watching them

Big props to @benfromcanada too for great editing of clips over all this awesome research and analysis

Thank you for spotlighting The Big Sleep. It's my all-time favorite movie. I've watched it at least 4 times a year for the last 30 years.

The point of why Gloria Swanson's performance in Sunset Blvd is 'exaggerated' is to show how out of touch and disconnected Norma Desmond is from her reality. Norma's overdramatization is her way of coping with reality as well as a hint towards her slippage in sanity. She's so caught up in reliving her glory days that she tries acting like the star she once was by being this caricature whether she is aware of it or not. If it were a more naturalistic performance frankly it wouldn't be half as interesting. It would not fit the tone of the movie at all and Norma Desmond wouldn't be the same character we remember today- if she would even stand the test of time. Since her expressions and way of delivery are what sell the audience into believing she was this movie star of great magnitude.

I love a quote from David Harbour on Hot Ones when he says: "The only way the spectator can believe that Hopper and Joyce are angry at each other is if David and Winona are angry at each other" which I see now as a real example of "The System".

Thank you for your eloquence and for putting such high quality content out there, you're one of the best on the platform!

Took a tonne away from this, especially as I'm working on my first "proper" short film with actors. Thanks, as always, for your in-depth video essays!

33:15 Hi Ben! :D (great job with the edit, for a split second I thought I was watching Mr Sunday Movies)

Old movies are more like theatre, modern movies aren't, and about the best description I've heard about the difference between stage acting and camera acting is that the way you talk and behave in relation to the physical distance between you and the other actor or actors is REVERSED: On stage, if you're two feet from someone you talk like they're thirty feet away; on camera, if you're thirty feet from someone you talk like they're two feet away. Now in regard to The Method vs The System and Strasberg vs Stanislavski, well, I'm reminded of one of my idols, Bruce Lee. The quotes from Stanislavski about how he didn't conceive or invent his system, how "you cannot act the 'system.' There is no 'system.' There is nature," could be straight from Lee's notes when referring to his Jeet Kune Do "system," which he always said was a non-system and, in fact, regretted naming in the first place because he didn't want if being rigidly defined, used as a how-to manual, or become something for future students and schools to argue over saying who is or isn't doing it "right"-which, as with the work of Stanislavski and the American schools of acting stemming from it, is exactly what happened. What Lee did, for those interested, was basically what Stanislavski did: He researched all the martial arts he could find to figure out what they had in common and what made them work-that was the SCIENCE. He then used those scientific principles he uncovered-NOT created, as Stanislavski pointed out about his own discoveries-to figure out what worked best for HIM-that was the ART. He also did the same for the people he worked with: "Here are the things that apply to EVERYONE. Your job is to use them to express YOURSELF." That's what an actor does. Which is why, when describing the craft in an interview, he said, "On the one hand you have natural instinct, on the other hand, control. You are to combine the two in harmony. If you have one to the extreme, you'll be very unscientific. If you have another to the extreme, you become, all of a sudden, a mechanical man, no longer a human being." A pair of wonderful classical theatre teachers I worked with described it as "guts" vs technique. They said American actors have guts; they perform with raw emotion and instinct and can be very compelling, but they often lack proper vocal and physical technique and appear untrained. British actors, however, because of their country's rich theatrical history and equally rich training, often have wonderful technique but, in the words of the teachers, "can look like they're having a cup of tea." In other words, they lack guts. Therefore, it was our job as students to blend guts with good technique and become, as Mr. Lee said, "a successful combination of both." But to return to the debate on The Method and what it is or isn't and what acting technique or approach is "best," I leave you with another quote from the Little Dragon: "It is futile to argue as to which single leaf, which design of branch, or which attractive flower you like; when you understand the root, you understand all its blossoming."

This awesome video summarizes everything we were taught in my first acting class and in the last part of a theater history class so beautifully

The lesser known knowledge about method acting is that there is a scale to method acting, and the extreme versions of method acting are what tends to be talked about and criticized. However, many actors use method acting without reaching the extremes, and it works fine. Method is just finding ways to get into the mind of the character, and it can be nice to discover things about the character if playing them off of the set or out of the rehearsal room / script.

I just started the video but I already have one question - at what point is Nicolas Cage mentioned?

I want to share my favorite recent quote about acting, from Matt Zoller Seitz (who I'm sure you know), talking about Big Acting - deliberately "Out There" performances, and in this case, specifically about Nicolas Cage in "Longlegs" - "[Big Acting is risky...] When it doesn't work, it's like releasing a ferret in a beauty salon. But when it works, it's like releasing a ferret in a beauty salon."

this was a quintessential evaluation of how acting has developed. Stanislavsky’s system, seemingly where the method derived from, was somewhat muddled once it reached America and when Adler refused to use Strasbergs method, she studied with Stanislavsky for 5 weeks. her own approach rang truest to Stanislavskys system and apparently affective memory was ditched by Stanislavsky at a certain point in his teachings. also i think the execution is deathly subjective. an actor nowadays might approach a role through Adler’s technique and produce an entirely different performance to how Adler would do it. presentational and representational are totally fine in their own ways. the tone of any film demands either theatricality or authenticity. e.g. imagine Brando trying his best to portray raw human emotion in a Mad Max film or The Matrix. certain stories have different tones and actors need to also hve a great understanding of the world in which they play in. sorry for the waffle but this idea of what happened to acting has been something i’ve constantly thought about and you really hit the nail on the head 👍

lawrence olivier once said dustin hoffman after going method by not sleeping for a few days: 'you should try acting, it so much easier'

Midsommer is probably not the film I would use to represent "naturalistic" acting. It's pretty theatrical itself. Also, this is a very America-centric perspective, as a the acting in a lot of European and Asian films, even from the early days, is much closer to naturalistic (according to the standards of the culture). Some of the best naturalistic acting ever can be found in such films as Winter Sleep, the Three Colours Trilogy, and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, none of which came from Hollywood or involved these celebrity thespians.

One important note about Stanislavski is that he taught “perezhivanie”, or becoming the character so that the actor embodies the character’s imagined reality in a way that feels effortless. Some examples may tend toward a more realistic reaction to a set of circumstances but others (as in the case of Bella Baxter), are not rooted in realism, but she is still experiencing the character’s particular circumstances that motivate her actions. I may be wrong as I’m citing what I remember from Butler’s book. Feel free to correct me if I got it wrong.

Thomas I've been reading theatrical theorists like E. Gordan Craig and Tadeusz Kantor, who emphasize non-realism, as a reaction to the cult of personality. I have a piece called Fictional Beings in a Theatrical World that you can find on YT. It is an exploration into acting theory. This explanation of the actor's craft, descending from Stanislavsky is a welcome study. Interestingly Stanislavsky's method was also seen as part of the results of the acting born out the Symbolist approach, highly artificial. And one of Stanislavsky's colleagues was Meyerhold, whose acting technique was much more artificial than most people today have ever seen. Craig invents the concept of the übermarionette, based on stock characters like the commedia dell'arte or even puppetry, to escape realism. Kantor uses life-sized dummies on stage with the actors. Symbolist and Expressionist acting can be seen in German Expressionism, think Caesare in Cabinet of Doctor Caligari or Nosferatu. I'm hoping to see a revival of absolutely artificial theatrical acting again. It has been done in farces and musicals. But agree with you about certain excesses of the 'Method', which often seems cultlike. Thanks for prodding a few thoughts.

I've been saying something for YEARS along the lines of, "I prefer modern acting because of the different style. Like, Episode 2 sucks but I prefer the acting STYLE of the Prequels to the OT." and you've come along and explained why SO WELL in JUST the thumbnail! (Let alone the video!) Thank you! I KNEW something was different but could never really explain it.

That’s why I feel Eleanor Parker was ahead of her time in the 40’s -60’s. She disappeared in her roles. Unfortunately she never became a big star as a result.

Some of the best actors from Hollywood's Golden Era used realism. James Steward's unique delivery was how he talked in real life. My favorite is John Wayne. People today think he was a bad actor because he played the same character so many times, but he knew his type that the audience wanted to see him play. And when he played that type he always had nuances and subtlety. It was all in his eyes. He carried his scene with a presence that I wonder if many characters today who are used to heavily edited scenes would be able to play off against. His best performance was The Searcher. The cast and crew say that he was not a pleasant person to be around during filming and avoided people during takes because he was lost in the character.

@45:58 the Ferris Wheel scene in The Third Man [1949] is my favorite example of "old school" theatrical acting (Cotten) and what would become the more "modern" naturalistic acting (Welles) occurring in the same exact scene.

There is a lack of content like this nowadays. Glad to know someone is still actually making this kind of videos; questioning, critiquing and analyzing in depth what they know.

Holy crap look at that time stamp 😂 this is gonna be fun

I knew there was something wild about A Streetcar Named Desire, first time I watched it I curled up to watch a good old fashioned hammy acting movie and was struck by how modern it felt for the time period especially for a black and white movie. Its fascinating really.

Just opened RU-vid, great timing Tom, appreciate it. ;)

Thank you for making this video. I am new to working in film as a makeup artist and I must admit that I sometimes think actors are quirky, a bit mentally ill, and even weird. Now I understand that there really is a “method” to the madness for some of them!

I don't even wanna imagine how much research must have gone into this one, Tom. So insightful, interesting and in-depth. Keep doing what you do.

I don't know how I got here, but thank you for the facinating hour long video I just watched on a topic I never realised I was interested in :)

Modern acting’s problem is modern writing. Most of it sucks. That’s not the actor’s fault, but the industry’s. Naturalistic acting sits on the knife edge of being “real” and being BORING, and the actor using this method sits on the edge of being an “actor” and being a bad actor. That’s why stars are disappearing, there’s nothing to distinguish modern actors from nobodies. Only the best actors can pull off naturalistic acting and make it entertaining.

Lawrence Olíviers “my dear boy why don’t you just try acting” to Dustin Hoffman will always make me giggle, one because for f*ck*ng reals drag his ass and two because I’ll never forgive him for slapping Meryl Streep on the face in the name of “Method Acting”, that is the number one reason I’m sour on it and think when Robert Pattinson said “Actors Only Go Method When They’re Playing A-holes” was 100 percent spot on.

I like that you put up a reference for literally this video at 2:20