Talk:Method acting/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Messages that were at the top

--I still have no clue what method acting is lots of issues | leave me a message 16:32, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

--I think this article would be greatly improved by referencing ariticles on alternative actice styles. [n00b]

There's a very good (and funny) anecdote which would go well in the section about derision of method acting -- Lawrence Olivier (I think?) saying to Dustin Hoffman (again, not sure) "try acting, it's so much easier". If someone can pin down the specifics... -- Tarquin

This (supposedly) took place on the set of Marathon Man. The best reference I can find is http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/articles/290701.htm

I haven't checked the link yet, but the story goes that Hoffman, in preparation for a scene in which his character hadn't slept, didn't himself sleep for a week in order to achieve "the right emotional state" for the character. Olivier, on finding out why Hoffman looked terrible, uttered that remark. HOWEVER, neither Stanislavski nor any of his disciples would advocate such extreme behavior, and it is this kind of mistake that gives Method acting a bad name.-- zarquan42

The IMDB trivia for Marathon Man clears this up and also has some good anecdotes (like running before a take to be really winded rather than to act winded by breathing heavy) about the more physical side of acting. The article right now focuses on emotions, memories and past experiences - but does anything know if there's anything to say about method acting regarding body language and movement?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074860/trivia A story circulated for a long time that Dustin Hoffman (being a "method actor") stayed up all night to play a character who has stayed up all night. Arriving on the set, Laurence Olivier asked him why he looked they way he did. Hoffman told him, to which Olivier replied in jest: "Why not try acting? It's much easier." Dustin Hoffman repeatedly denied the story, and finally cleared up the story in 2004. The torture scene was filmed early in the morning, Hoffman was going through a divorce from his first wife and was depressed, and had spend the previous two nights partying hard. Hoffman told Olivier this and his comment related to his lifestyle and not his "method" style of acting.Gwynplaine 05:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I have removed a request to E-mail someone (perhaps an author of the article) from the article, on the basis that this could be abused. What is Wikipedia policy on putting E-mail addresses in pages? -- Anon.

I would have removed it also, but primarily for a different reason - that an invitation to email some random person (who may or may not be an authority on method acting, we have no way of knowing) is not useful information for an encyclopedia article.

In general, there hasn't been a policy on this matter as there has been no need. My take on the matter is that a) if the person organisation wishes to be contactable, presumably they will have a webpage advertising this and it's much more appropriate to provide a link to the webpage (and thus give them the reponsibility of making the decision what contact information they wish to provide), b) the utility of adding email addresses to encyclopedia articles seems limited, and c) unless an adress is public knowledge it's highly inappropriate to violate an individual's privacy by publicising it here. So, in general, I see that in *most* circumstances, it would be inappropriate to add email addresses to pages. Of course, what a user chooses to place on their own user page, provided it relates to Wikipedia, is up to them. --Robert Merkel

By the way, Anon, I see your IP address keeps on popping up. Why not get an account? If you don't want to give us your RL identity, you don't have to, and it helps discussions if you can attribute views to entities. That's true, even if we're not sure whether that entity is really Joeseph Bloggs from Billings, Montana, Hou Ming Xihua from Shanghai, or G'nord Wazzlewozzle from the planet F'ltroon (the F'ltroonians have developed pretty cool quantum technologies allowing them to link in with our primitive communications networks in real time despite their location 547 light years away :-) ). --Robert Merkel

I read this article and I still don't know what method acting is. Philwelch 22:13, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think it's because the article defines method acting techniques as including "the extremely notable 'what if', 'substitution', and 'emotional memory'" without explaining what any of those entail. --Arteitle 16:18, Jul 2, 2004 (UTC)

It's been a year, almost to the day, that I last complained about this article. I just read it again. Once again, I fail to comprehend what method acting is. Philwelch 02:45, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I can't say I really understand it from the article either. Quite a hard article to write, I imagine - can anyone help? --Estarriol 15:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

149.99.155.34...why did you change it from "This approach..." to "This stupid approach??

I read many articles on this method and others. It seems like every site i go to I can't seem to find out what the methods actually are. I have a paper due tomorrow and i can't seem to figure out what to write!!!! (~*ELeNa*~)

Daniel Day-Lewis

I've added Daniel Day-Lewis to the list of method actors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.125.89 (talk) 05:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

That's not a list of method actors; it's a list of actors who studied with Lee Strasberg. I've removed it again. --Brian Olsen (talk) 20:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Room for improvement

I don't know what method acting is, but even after reading the Wikipedia page I felt none the wiser. Could someone in the know improve the page so that Philistines like myself are enlightened. Thanks!

Similar page elsewhere?

There is also a page entitled "Method" - is this the same thing described differently?

Categories

This subject area is unknown to me, but I find it odd that there can't be any categories for it... Cburnett 04:31, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Method "acting"

Method isn't really a style of acting, now, is it? It's how the actor is trained and how they learn to act. If anything, the acting style related to the Method is naturalism, and the page title should reflect that. Cigarette 14:29, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not so. "The Method" and "Method acting" refers to a particular branch of actor training originating in the US. It is by no means universal. "Naturalism" is a difficult category to apply in this case as well. "Psychological realism" would be more accurate. DionysosProteus 00:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

So, what is method acting?!

I agree with Phil-- I still have no clue what method acting is.

Well, it isn't exactly the easiest thing to define. I suppose, with my limited but advanced-for-a-student-my-age knowledge, that it could be summed up as the acting technique in which the actor takes his emotion an "emotional memory" of emotion he has taken from personal experiences.--Theaterfreak64 02:05, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)

Here's a definition: it's exactly the opposite of how Jennifer Aniston acts. 99.233.20.151 (talk) 14:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

POV?

The article seems to be overly enthusiastic about Method Acting. Perhaps it could be a little more NPOV?

A name for non-Method acting?

There's still some of that POV left: method acting is supposed to be the antithesis to cliché, unrealistic, and so-called "rubber-stamp" acting. Question: is there a neutral word that describes such an approach? I've noticed myself that I find the "balletic" approach to acting that you see in many silent films more entertaining than the "pathomimetic" approach of the Method. I'm making up words as I go along here, I know. The article, and the Method itself, still seems to imply that social realism is the highest aspiration of the acting profession: and for a Symbolist like myself, that's like waving a red flag at a bull. But my chief question is, does non-Method acting have a name? Are there similar references that teach non-Method acting? or schools where it was taught? -- Smerdis of Tlön 15:42, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Good job.

Reading this article a few months after my first anniversary complaint, I now know what method acting is. Good work. — Phil Welch 22:00, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I met an actor (Orson Beene ) who said that he was able to act drunk using this method: pretending to roll a ball in an imaginary mexican hat while he acted. When a play about Browning was produced on Broadway, it was said that a desk belonging to Browning with a note penned by him was placed on stage to help the actor summon the spirit of Browning. When Al Pacino worked on Richard III in Looking For Richard (a fine video introduction to the play), he said that he went to the stage that Richard had been performed in the 17th Century to help him pick up the spirit of the play -- and he called it method. I take it that using a conscious method or strategy to reach an acting goal is method acting. LF.MATC..

Simple, ain't it?

If I have to cry, I try to remember those things that made me cry in the past. That's THE METHOD. I might as well use my imagination and pretend I'm at my little sister's funeral.(WormE)

OK - I have (again) removed the references to Jason Bennett in this entry and I hope Mr. Bennett and/or his subordinates will leave it alone. I have no beef with Mr. Bennett (other than his presence here.) I am not a disgruntled former student. He may well be a very qualified teacher. He just does not - cannot - be considered in the same league as Michael Chekhov, Eugeny Vakhtangov, Uta Hagen, Richard Boleslawski, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner or Robert Lewis (who I added.) His insistence on being included in this august roster smacks of self promotion at best and delusions of grandeur at worst. Please. Whatcape 15:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

non-method acting

I'm quite confused... If all the techniques described in this article are method acting, then what exactly constitutes non-method acting? I have no formal acting training, but I do have some acting experience (I guess you could say I'm self-taught) and I can't imagine any other acting techniques. Marksman45 10:22, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The main alternate approach to acting is to refer to the character's circumstances and allow yourself, as the character, to react to those circumstances honestly, without conscious reference to past experiences. 70.17.135.67 10:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Elia Kazan

Someone who knows more about it than I do should add something about Kazan's contribution to Method Acting in American film.

Stop the Jason Bennett Spammers

This entry has been repeatedly spammed by Jason Bennett and his supporters. If this spam appears again, it should be deleted. Mr. Bennett's Wikipedia entry has been deleted for not being notable and his spam has been removed many times. Please help keep Wikipedia a place for sharing information not advertising. Tree Trimer 10:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Manic Acting?

Is this the same thing as "manic acting"? --bakuyaku 05:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

External references?

Either those books were used as sources for writing the article --> references Or they are links with further information --> external links Or they are books with more information --> Recommended reading. There's no such thing as external references. So which of those were used in the writing of this article? - Mgm|^(talk) 23:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

"Method Actors" section

This section is pretty horrible, and I think reflects a common misconception of method acting. If someone says method acting is "really doing something" onstage or on-camera, that refers to having an real intention or objective, not really waxing your chest. (No offense to Steve Carell.) And while Robert DeNiro is definitely a method actor, it isn't because he gained weight for a part. This whole article has citing problem, but I'm really thinking that this whole section should be deleted, and only actors who can be verifiably cited as claiming to be method actors, or using method techniques, should be added back in. There are only two citations right now, and the link for Paul Newman is broken, and the one for George Peppard goes to IMDB, which is kind of iffy (since anyone can add anything to IMDB, I believe). I'd like to get some comments before I go ahead and delete a whole section, though. Thoughts? --Brian Olsen 17:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The "Method" technique has become so ingrained in the field that many actors use it to some degree. Unless they have declared themselves "Method actors" then it is impossible to determine. -Will Beback 22:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Right. I put a clean-up tag on the list and deleted some of the specious examples. This list needs to be limited to verifiable and notable method actors—not just actors who've gained/lost weight for a role or maintained an accent off screen. --Jeremy Butler 12:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I found a good Times article that could serve as a citation for method actors - I went ahead and redid the whole list, removing anybody not cited. Here's the list of actors I removed, in case someone wants to research proper references for them:

Kevin Spacey, Montgomery Clift, Michael Ironside, Wesley Snipes, James Dean, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Steve McQueen, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Brad Dourif, Geraldine Page, Angelina Jolie, Mickey Rourke, Matt Damon, Robert Mitchum

I also deleted the external references section, which only had two links. One I used as a citation, so it's still under references. Here's the other one - it might have info to be worked into the article as criticism:

Article Debunking Method Acting - review of David Mamet's book, True and False -- Heresy and Common Sense, which debunks the Method

I'll probably get to this eventually, but I wanted to hang onto this info in case someone else got to it first. --Brian Olsen 18:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Added Cleanup Tag

This article uses a very informal, even discussional tone, one quite definitely unencyclopedic. It requires a fair amount of cleanup to meet wikipedia's standards of quality. I might get around to it, or maybe someone else will (that would be great). The part where a second author interjects his opinion in the middle of the article requires cited sources as well as a definite change in wording.Jasper124c41 05:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't even know how to begin to reword that section for the article, so I'm cutting and pasting it below. The conversational tone belongs on a Talk page, not in an article. --Brian Olsen 06:04, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Copied from article

There are some misconceptions, I think, being promulgated in the above encapsulation of Method Acting.

Yes, it was brought to the fore of theatrical awareness by the the Actors Studio, it was utterly indebted to the groundbreaking thinking of Konstantin Stanislavski in his seminal work "An Actor Prepares". He was the first to really analize what a performer must do technically to prepare to step on stage. It is far more complex than simply understanding "motivations and emotions". It is about how to prepare oneself to step before an audience.

The act of standing up in front of other people to do anything, give a speech, lead a meeting, let alone to try and draw an audience into a completely different reality; is an un-natural act.

The person choosing to do this is beset by tension.

And it is the ability to develop a set of techniques that can reduce tension below the level where it will inhibit one's ablility to be creative in front of an audience; that is at the core of the exercises surrounding "The Method."

Tension is the enemy of creation.

The artist -- in whatever medium -- must be able to reduce tension to a level below which it will allow creativity, impulse, and imagination to flow freely. In the moment to moment circumstance of the a living stage performance this is life or death in terms of a successful performance.

From a stage performers point of view, which is all I know, technical mastery of tools to control and reduce tension are the first step in building a "method" which will allow one to act - characterization can only begin after tension has been managed through technique. -- (added to main article by Dbobr, 00:32, March 7, 2007)

Brando wasn't a method actor

Opposite to Hollywood legend, Marlon Brando never considered himself a method actor. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.192.243.207 (talk) 13:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

Brando never considered hiumself a method acotr, this is true. That does not mean that he wasn't one, or that it was Hollywood leggend. He nevr said "I am a Method Actor," but he was trained by Lee (Strasberg) and did use many of his techinques. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.4.21.71 (talk) 17:25, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Justification for removal of Vakhtangov from list of Method teachers

Hello all. Just a note to explain why I've removed Vakhtangov's name from the list of Method teachers in this article.

The 'Method,' in whichever form you consider it, is emphatically not identical with the 'system' that Stanislavski developed. One is an American acting tradition, the other a Russian one. Although they are related genealogically, thanks to the American tour of Stanislavski's Moscow Arts Theatre in the early twenties that left behind actors who began to teach the early stages of Stanislavski's development of his 'system', there are many important divergences between the two approaches. Given this, Vakhtangov, who is undoubtedly an important figure in the history of acting, more properly belongs on one of the pages describing the Russian approach. He did not, to my knowledge (and please feel free to correct me with a citation if I'm mistaken), ever teach in America, nor were his ideas about theatre and acting ever influenced by any of the American developers of the Method (Strasberg, Adler, Meisner et al.. It is inaccurate, therefore, to describe him as a teacher of 'Method Acting'. I have, therefore, removed his name.

DionysosProteus 17:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Quite right, too! This whole article bothers me - it really needs a thorough clean-up, but I'm a bit overwhelemed by it, and haven't got the references on hand. But anyways, no argument from me about the removal of Vakhtangov. --Brian Olsen 18:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Sense Memory My biggest problem with this artticle, as a Method Actor who studied 10 years at the Strasberg Institute, is that it makes no mention of Sense Memory. Sense Memory is the basic tenant of Lee's work. It's what the whole school is built on. Most excersizes done in "Method work" relate to sense memory. I could write an article on it, myself, given the time... but it really needs to be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.4.21.71 (talk) 17:28, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

List of notable Method actors - opinions requested

This section has recently been cut:

These actors have acknowledged using Method Acting as part of their technique:

Brando, Marlon Burstyn, Ellen Clift, Montgomery De Niro, Robert Dean, James Franco, James Grant, Lee Hoffman, Dustin Hunter, Kim

Khan, Amir Monroe, Marilyn Newman, Paul Pacino, Al Page, Geraldine Peppard, George Stanley, Kim Stapleton, Maureen

Steiger, Rod Wilder, Gene Winters, Shelley

Notes:

Now, personally, I'm pretty glad to see it go. But it's not fair to call it a trivia section. That someone trained in the Method doesn't mean that their having done so is notable. That much is clear. However, some actors have notably been Method actors, and the whole cultural mythology that has grown up around it is partly to do with them. Brando, Dean, Monroe, DeNero, Pacino etc. Quite what Gene Wilder's doing on the list escapes me. Anyhow, rather than revert, I've moved it here to see if anyone wants to discuss stricter / clearer criteria for inclusion, if such a list should exist.

BTW, I did revert the edit that undid capitalization of the Method. That's how it's known. If you really need citations for that, I'll dig them out. DionysosProteus 00:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Even though I was the one who originally cleaned up this section, and have been pretty strict about keeping it properly referenced - I'm ok with seeing it go as well. This section made up the bulk of the article once upon a time, and it was overstuffed with actors - anyone who had ever so much as gained weight for a role was included, Method or not. I cleaned it up rather than delete it completely, but nevertheless I don't think it's needed. The actors who are most associated with the Method should be mentioned in the text somewhere, there's no need for a separate section. And I'm tired of removing "Christian Bale" every other week. --Brian Olsen 12:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, some of the info is useful but it doesn't necc. need to be in a list format. DionysosProteus 16:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)