INSIDE THE BRAIN OF A MOVIE STAR
"But they have no brains!" someone is sure to say.
That sort of thing is rather cheap cynicism. As a matter of fact, they
have plenty of brains, but of their own peculiar sort. A movie actor,
like any other type of artist, is an emotional, temperamental creature;
but the problem which worries him the most is one of intellect rather
than emotion; in short, just how to control the reactions inside that
discredited gray matter of his.
Every movie actor--and you, too, if you enter this field--is at one time
or another confronted with the perplexing problem of just how much
thought he should allow to go into his work; that is, whether his acting
should be emotional or intellectual. The question resolves itself into
this:
Does an actor feel?
Should he feel?
There are two schools of thought on this seemingly academic but in
reality most important subject.
First are those who say that an actor must feel the part he is playing.
The greatest actors, they say, have always been those who wore
themselves out in an hour's time, because they felt the emotions they
portrayed. They tell stories such as that of Mrs. Kendall, who, having
lost her own child, electrified an English audience by her portrayal of
the bereaved mother in "East Lynne" to such an extent that women leaped
to their feet in the pit, shouting, "No more, no more." They point to
the fact that the great stars of the screen and the stage alike are able
to simulate the three reactions which are quite beyond the control of
the will--pallor, blushing, and the sudden perspiration which comes with
great terror or pain. This, they say, is proof positive that these
actors are feeling every emotion as they enact it.
The second group declares that all this is nonsense and that if an actor
really felt his part he would lose control of himself, and perhaps
actually murder some other actor in a fight scene. Acting, they say, is
an art wherein the artist, by the use of his intellect, is able to
simulate that which he does not feel--using his face merely as the
painter uses his canvas. The moment an actor begins to enter into his
part, his acting is either overdone or underdone and the scene is
ruined. The whole trick of it, they add, is to keep perfectly cool and
know exactly what you are doing, no matter how spectacular the scene.
Still a third school declares that both these views are wrong, and that
acting is neither a matter of thought nor of emotion, but is purely
imitative. An actor observes his own emotions as he experiences them in
each crisis of his real life, they say, and remembers them so well that
he is afterward able to reproduce them before the camera.
The truth of it seems to be that all of them are partly right and partly
wrong. The great stars of the movies to-day, when one is able to draw
them out on the subject, say that when they are acting they are thinking
not about one thing but about several things. The brain is divided into
different strata, and while one section is thinking about the part,
another section is entering into it, while still a third stratum is
busying itself with idle speculation about the cameraman and the
director.
There are two important secrets, connected with the psychology of screen
acting, which every beginner should know, even if he never makes use of
them. The first is that of Preparation; the second, that of
Auto-Suggestion.
A movie actor or actress is in a more difficult position, so far as the
artistry of his work is concerned, than the players of the spoken drama.
In the movies the scenes are nearly always taken out of sequence, the
first last, the last first, and so forth. For that reason the motion
picture stars have great difficulty in working themselves up to the
proper "pitch" to play a scene, inasmuch as they have not been through
the action which leads up to it.
The movie directors know this, and in most studios try to help them up
to this "pitch" by employing small orchestras to play during the
important scenes. In nearly every large studio where more than one
company is working there are to be heard the faint strains of Sonata
Pathetique, where some melancholy scene is being taken, or livelier
music for a bit of comedy in another set. Also the directors are always
behind the camera to guide their actors with spoken directions as the
scene is made. This orchestra business has always seemed to us pure
buncombe, but if the director or actor gets any fun out of it, it
doesn't do any particular harm.
The wise movie actors of to-day are borrowing these two tricks of
Preparation and Auto-Suggestion from their brethren of the stage.
Preparation consists merely of spending a little time before the scene
is begun in going over the part, in thinking about it, and in trying
really to feel all the emotions of the character in question. This seems
a simple matter; but it makes the difference between real acting and
routine work. Once an actor has carefully worked out the part for
himself he can easily conform to the director's ideas; and once he has
let himself feel his part he need waste no emotion upon it when on the
"set," for his mimetic powers will reproduce his feelings of an hour
before.
Auto-suggestion consists in working oneself up to the part before going
before the camera by various expedients. For example, one actor, before
playing a part calling for extreme anger, spends some ten minutes in
clenching his fists, swearing at the handiest fence post, setting his
jaw--and so making himself really angry. It is not hard to reproduce
emotion by these tricks of auto-suggestion. Try thinking of something
sad--draw your face down--and before long you will be in a very glum
mood. That is the way such stars as Norma Talmadge and Mary Pickford
produce tears on short notice. Most people think they are tricks of
make-up, such as drops of glycerine; as a matter of fact, it is a matter
of puckering the face and a few gloomy thoughts.
All this sort of thing sounds very intricate and unnecessary. And yet it
is the really practical side of screen acting. The psychology of each
actor is different and his manner of preparing for a scene and of
enacting it will be different. The important thing is that he be aware
that there is such a thing as psychology, and that if he will only
understand it as applied to himself he can improve his work as a film
player.