Home Study: ON THE WATERFRONT (2)

Method Acting and Music Cue in On the Waterfront

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THIS IS another link from On the Waterfront you should study to see how Method Actors work.
    In this scene Marlon Brando, as Terry Malloy, strikes up a conversation with Edie Doyle, played by Eva Marie Saint. During the scene, at 0:44 in the youtube clip, Saint accidentally dropped her glove. Now instead of stopping a scene, Method Actors, who live the moment, simply develop the moment as it happens, even if it's an accident or different from the script. (That's why some directors sympathetic to the Method tell their cameramen to keep the camera rolling even if an accident happens.)
    In this case, Brando picks up the glove and continues as if the dropped glove was written into the script. Saint develops the scene in the same way (Brando puts his hand into the glove, while Saint makes gestures to return it).
    We can also study this clip for music underscore. At 2:22 into the clip, when Terry asks, "Do you remember me?" Edie's growing affection for Terry is announced in the underscore by composer, Leonard Bernstein's first quiet statement of the love cue*, which will thereafter be identified with the couple.
    *A music cue is a part of a film underscore identified with a scene, character, or moment, usually indicated by titles in a cue sheet, such as "shower murder," "car chase," "nightmare," etc.

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