METHOD ACTING AND MUSIC CUES IN On the Waterfront
Since this is an introductory week, we cannot go too deeply into acting. However, since a student asked about "Method Acting," I'm sending this link to one of the most famous scenes in movie history, the car scene from On the Waterfront. We'll study the sequence from 2:35 into the file.
Two brothers are sitting in a car. One brother, a gangster named Charlie Molloy has been told by his boss to talk sense to his younger brother, Terry (a former club fighter, never a big-name fighter) into not ratting to the police. When Charlie thinks he's unable to persuade Terry, he pulls out a gun to threaten him. This is the scene that the movie's director Elia Kazan wrote of, saying that no other actor would have responded like Brando (as Terry) did, gently placing fingers over the gun to lower it in his brother's hands.
That's because Method Actors don't play a part, they live the part. And doing so, they live "moment to moment," based on personal (real) emotions that they feel while acting the part. They don't just read lines or follow directions in a script ("Terry reacts with anger when his brother pulls a gun on him").
Therefore each take on the same scene will produce different results, since each take will produce different personal emotions in the actor.
Now this can be tiring. So a "method" was devised to teach actors how to live "moment-to-moment" without too much strain.
This is all we can say about Method Acting for now. We'll have to wait until the chapter on acting to learn moe about "The Method," as it's sometimes simply called.
"The Method" is not a cure-all for good acting. In my opinion it can produce as many bad actors as traditional acting styles can. And vice-versa: there have been many great performances on stage and in movies by people who knew nothing of The Method. Charlie Chaplin's final scenes in City Lights, which we discussed in class, is one example. In fact, to this viewer at least, some scenes in On the Waterfront seem as mannered or false as in traditional acting.
The fact is, as Marlon Brando himself said, real acting is hard and actors become lazy. So even Method Actors start pretending a role instead of living it (what Method guru, Stanislavski, called "stenciling"). It's painful to have to "live" those painful emotions many times a day (losing one's lover, one's mother's death from cancer, etc.)
Let's face it: most of us try to forget our painful memories, not remember them!
But even if the scene does not involve a painful memory (betrayal of a friend, death of a parent or sibling, sickness of a loved one, etc.) it requires CONCENTRATION, which is tiring in order to live "moment-to-moment" instead of just reading one's lines.
(Observe shortly after the gun moment Brando's pause when his "brother" asks him, "How much did you weigh?" Brando, as Charlie, is puzzled by the question since he's not thinking of himself as a boxer at the moment but of his brother's betrayal with the gun. We can see the confusion in the actor's face, because he's really living the moment when one is asked an unexpected question.)
Now since we're watching this scene anyway, I'll point out other cinematic issues following the gun moment:
The car is not a real moving car. The effect of a moving car is created in the cinematography, using lights to make it look like the car is passing other cars in the night.
Listen to the music cues too. Just after Charlie pulls the gun on his brother, composer Leonard Bernstein introduces a riff as underscore to highlight the tense moment. This is followed by a sleazy saxophone cue, evoking the shabby life of the fighter, Terry. Then follows a tender cue for strings (after Charlie says, "He brought you along too fast), as Terry begins to talk of his failure as a person and as a fighter.
Also bear in mind, the composer not only spots music cues (decides where to put music, with the agreement of the director and editor) but also where not to put music. So silent underscore (music) is a chocie too. Of course a music cue becomes stronger if it's preceded by no other music cue before.
One final note: this was composer/conductor, Leonard Bernstein's only film score. (He was nominated for an Oscar but did not win, though in my opinion he should have.) Bernstein was a legendary teacher/composer/conductor, but also famous for his popular scores for the Broadway musicals, On the Town, Candide, and especially West Side Story.
There are other things we can talk about even in this short scene. The enclosure of the car and the tight (close) framing of the scene adds emotional intensity to it. (Imagine the same scene in a coffee shop! It would lose a lot of its force.) Notice not once do we cut away from the brothers (for example, to the driver or to outside traffic, as another scene might require: such as a car chase by the police). Only after the brother leaves do we cut, dramatically, to the driver, who's really a gangster! Bernstein underscores this moment with a dynamic change in the underscore (not included in our clip).
Or notice the costume design: the gangster brother without a conscience is well dressed while the younger brother who's beginning to have a conscience is shabbily dressed, a comment on upscale corruption.
Or study when the editor chooses a two-shot (both characters in the frame) compared to a close-up on one of the brothers. When does the editor cut? Why?
We can't answer these questions now. I merely awaken your interest.
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