Acting+and+Action

=Reading:= ==Here’s a reading for us (Do check out the in text links as well): [|Why actors still talk about Charlie Chaplin and what he teaches them about not acting funny]==

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= pantomime = 1. a dramatic entertainment, originating in Roman mime, in which performers express meaning through gestures accompanied by music. 2. an absurdly exaggerated piece of behaviour: //he made a pantomime of checking his watch//.

**acting** the art or occupation of performing fictional roles in plays, films, or television

=__Expressive Gestures__=

==Mark Cousin’s suggests that Charlie Chaplin is Jungian in his approach to both play, character and the world around the character. His pantomine doesn't just tell us a story but relates the internal, psychological life of his tramp character. ==

==Buster Keaton let very little emotion register on his face but this seems to amplify what is there. Keaton like Chaplin emphasizes the interaction of their characters with the world around them/the film's mise en scene (note the prop gags, use of space and use of other people almost as objects). Perhaps silent film illustrated the visual nature of cinema best because the inclusion of sound no matter how effective changes the game a bit. Actors in the silent cinema had to show us what they were about. Though the idea that silent film acting is overwrought and overdone is common and in any number of cases true, it is also a mistaken generalization. Pantomime's goal is not to recreate actual behavoir but to tell us what we need to know for a story to work. ==

Jack Black Pantomimes with subtle finesse as he makes up a corpse in a class for undertakers. View a second time with the sound turned down. Note facial expression and other gestures.
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Note a similar finesse at the task of eating a shoe. A starving Chaplin, cooks and eats his shoe in The Gold Rush (1925) Dir. Charlie Chaplin.
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And Johhny Depp Pantomimes as well. Depp has often touted his debt to Buster Keaton
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=__ Choreography and physical invention __= = = = The actions of the pantomime/acting utilize all of the mise en scene as well as defining film space through the actions of the character. In silent film, the characters seems to be interacting completely and actively with the physical substance of the world rather than just passing through it or in front of it. Consider the overt physicality of Buster Keaton in The General (1927) or Harold Lloyd in Safety Last (1923) and then Jackie Chan’s Project A (1983). These silent film actors attack the film world like [|parkourists]! =

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Jaques Tati engages is the modern Kitchen circa 1958 in Mon Oncle media type="custom" key="24025744"

== In considering acting in the silent film it perhaps makes sense to start with the comedians but let’s not leave it at that. Recall Lilian Gish in [|The Wind] and consider the impact of such performances. ==

== G.W. Pabst’s version of the classic Pandora’s Box features Louise Brooks as the amoral but naive Lulu whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her. Below she accidentally kills her jealous new husband who tries to get her to kill herself. Brooks’ performance is rather subtle here. == media type="custom" key="24040994"

== In The Penalty (1920), Lon Chaney plays another physically deformed character. Blizzard, deranged from a childhood operation in which both his legs were perhaps needlessly amputated after an accident, becomes a vicious criminal. In this scene, as he checks on his women slaves who must work in his criminal factory, he catches a women spy, sent undercover by the police. Chaney’s performance is intensely physical as usual. == media type="custom" key="24041186"

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