"I Don't See Any Method at All": The Problem of Actorly Transformation
2006; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 58; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-6018
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoCaptain Willard (Martin Sheen): They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound. Colonel Kurtz (Marion Brando): Are my methods unsound? Captain Willard: don't see any method at all. sir. -Apocalypse Now IN 1980, HAVING PREVIOUSLY GARNERED AN ACADEMY AWARD for Best Supporting Actor as Vito Corleone The Godfather Part II (1974)-a character first played by Marion Brando-Robert De Niro received the Best Actor Oscar for his performance of Jake La Motta Raging Bull. It was a performance that, then as now, proved difficult to ignore. The commercial and critical consensus suggested that, whatever the considerable merits of Martin Scorsese's contributions, most of the film's impact derived from De Niro's acting; Louis Menand even argues that everything Scorsese does is contrived to let that performance stand at the center of our (61). Though Raging Bull and Scorsese lost Best Picture and Best Director honors to Robert Redford's Ordinary People (a decision still ridiculed by film critics), by decade's end the film was at the top of best-of lists Premiere and Time, and it is now listed on the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. De Niro's astonishing sixty-pound weight gain for the scenes of La Motta's later years was heavily publicized and dominated reviews of the film. Like the Oscar victories, which suggested De Niro as the Method heir to Brando, critics linked the performance to an earlier generation of Method actors, particularly Brando. The film itself famously makes the connection the final scene, as an aging La Motta rehearses for a nightclub routine by reciting Brando's legendary couldah been a contender) speech from On the Waterfront (1954). Echoing the tempest of debate that had swirled around Brando and the Method performers the 19505, however, many critics felt something missing De Niro's role, even as they were overwhelmed by it. De Niro does this picture isn't acting, exactly, writes Pauline Kael. I'm not sure what it is. Though it may at some level be awesome, it definitely isn't pleasurable (874). Andrew Sarris's review says De Niro outdoes Lon Chaney in wreaking havoc on one's metabolism for the sake of shocking and depressing [his] audience, and concludes by revisiting that final nightclub scene: ... I can only gasp at the deeply affecting aptness and audacity and virtuosity of the conceit. Between them, De Niro and Scorsese and their associates end up with a breathtakingly new dimension of memory and regret. If only I could feel the slightest moral resonance as well, but I don't, and that makes all the difference (55). The dichotomies evident the critical reception to De Niro's performance Raging Bull-adulation mixed with disapproval and disgust, recognition of an extraordinary devotion to craft mixed with uncertainty about whether it qualifies as craft at all-are typical of this unprecedented but increasingly common approach to acting tdthat I will call transformation. How do we make sense of a performance movement that seems on one hand utterly senseless, even dangerous, and on the other hand exceptionally dedicated and even (given the attention it often receives) financially shrewd? What relation does it have to the first generation of Method actors, to which it is frequently linked (as the scene from Raging Bull) but which had a markedly different attitude toward the actor's instrument, the human body? While actorly transformation has sometimes been seen as only an expression of exercise culture and weight-loss fads, these explanations fail to consider the impact of vast changes the Hollywood entertainment industry since the Method's cultural zenith the 19505. As both David Cook and Jon Lewis have described, the 19705 and 19805 saw Hollywood's corporate structure and financing strategies shift profoundly, toward a business model premised on diversification and risk aversion. …
Referência(s)