Thursday, October 27, 2005
My kingdom for a writer...
There are two ways to portray a historical figure as an actor - imitate, or resonate, as one might say. That is, you can try to make the audience recognize mannerisms, accent, and idiosyncrasies, or you can try to recreate the forces within that moved that individual. One can't commit fully to both approaches at the same time and it's laughable to flip from one to the other.
Both approaches have their advantages, but critics overwhelming prefer the latter: alas, audiences not always. And real-life figures who are exceptional actors are often exceptionally good at never revealing precisely what motivates them even to those closest to them (trust me on this one). Audrey Hepburn strikes me as having been masterly at precisely this mannered presentation of self that tells future writers and actors almost nothing of what they most want to know, no matter how good their "actor's mind" is. Whereas Nixon, for example, a profound, if highly skilled ham, revealed all his insecurities to the professional eye instantly. Such skills as Hepburn had may simply close off the possibility of creating an "inner portrayal" of her that would ring true without the precise manners.
Ms. Hewitt does a remarkable job of the first approach - which can never be as consistent as a more Stanislavskian go at it. At some moments, she captures Audrey with impossible accuracy in every respect. With a larger budget and longer shooting schedule those moments might have been so frequent as to be mindbending. But this was a TV movie, so unsurprisingly. more often a slightly wandering accent or only nearly correct posture makes identification impossible. Yet I can't think of a better portrayal of the look and mannerisms of an historical character on film offhand, so for professionals the time spent is worthwhile for this alone: to know what's possible and what's not in playing out other's lives on film.
The writing is less interesting I'm sorry to say. Stanislavski, as a director, was very insistent that key decisions always be made onstage, not between scenes, if at all possible. This rarely seems to happen in this script, which makes the straightforward error of portraying events more often than decisions. However, real stories, mesmerizing stories, are about decisions, and even when Audrey accepts her first marriage proposal - making a decision in front of us for once - we don't know why, because we know nothing about him that couldn't be found in Who's Who, and she hasn't done a lot of confiding, previously, to fill us in. In sum, it's not a terrible script, just pedestrian (almost literally.)
That having been said, in some indefinable way, it does manage to capture what's best about that period of deliberate fantasy and denial that followed the Second World War, in the fifties and early sixties. Full disclosure: it's a period I remember with some bitterness in truth, but this movie shows the best side of that vanished era, and made me fonder of it.
October 27, 2005
A postscript - some might wonder why I saw this movie, much less bothered to review it. Part of the answer is that I've become interested in movies set in or made circa 1960, when I was five, such as Vertigo. Another part of the reason is that the portrayal of historical characters cuts to the heart of many questions and dilemmas for actors. But mostly, I've had a less than stellar day, and nothing settles me down quite so much as writing fairly well about something not quite so important as say, the survival of our environment or the accelerating epidemic of chronic illness throughout the industrialized world.
Both approaches have their advantages, but critics overwhelming prefer the latter: alas, audiences not always. And real-life figures who are exceptional actors are often exceptionally good at never revealing precisely what motivates them even to those closest to them (trust me on this one). Audrey Hepburn strikes me as having been masterly at precisely this mannered presentation of self that tells future writers and actors almost nothing of what they most want to know, no matter how good their "actor's mind" is. Whereas Nixon, for example, a profound, if highly skilled ham, revealed all his insecurities to the professional eye instantly. Such skills as Hepburn had may simply close off the possibility of creating an "inner portrayal" of her that would ring true without the precise manners.
Ms. Hewitt does a remarkable job of the first approach - which can never be as consistent as a more Stanislavskian go at it. At some moments, she captures Audrey with impossible accuracy in every respect. With a larger budget and longer shooting schedule those moments might have been so frequent as to be mindbending. But this was a TV movie, so unsurprisingly. more often a slightly wandering accent or only nearly correct posture makes identification impossible. Yet I can't think of a better portrayal of the look and mannerisms of an historical character on film offhand, so for professionals the time spent is worthwhile for this alone: to know what's possible and what's not in playing out other's lives on film.
The writing is less interesting I'm sorry to say. Stanislavski, as a director, was very insistent that key decisions always be made onstage, not between scenes, if at all possible. This rarely seems to happen in this script, which makes the straightforward error of portraying events more often than decisions. However, real stories, mesmerizing stories, are about decisions, and even when Audrey accepts her first marriage proposal - making a decision in front of us for once - we don't know why, because we know nothing about him that couldn't be found in Who's Who, and she hasn't done a lot of confiding, previously, to fill us in. In sum, it's not a terrible script, just pedestrian (almost literally.)
That having been said, in some indefinable way, it does manage to capture what's best about that period of deliberate fantasy and denial that followed the Second World War, in the fifties and early sixties. Full disclosure: it's a period I remember with some bitterness in truth, but this movie shows the best side of that vanished era, and made me fonder of it.
October 27, 2005
A postscript - some might wonder why I saw this movie, much less bothered to review it. Part of the answer is that I've become interested in movies set in or made circa 1960, when I was five, such as Vertigo. Another part of the reason is that the portrayal of historical characters cuts to the heart of many questions and dilemmas for actors. But mostly, I've had a less than stellar day, and nothing settles me down quite so much as writing fairly well about something not quite so important as say, the survival of our environment or the accelerating epidemic of chronic illness throughout the industrialized world.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Novel asteroid deflection vehicle
I've been meaning to write this up as an article for more than a year, so this quick note will have to do. It seems to me the best craft to deflect asteroids (particularly delicate or spinning ones) would be simple, if apparently a bit wasteful: glue two ion engines with equal thrust back to back so that they produce no relative motion of the craft, bring this device near the asteroid and point the emissions of one engine at the asteroid. If this can be done precisely enough that some ice boils there, so much the better.
A craft with one engine would do, if the engine were flipped (rotating against a counterweight) repeatedly, to "pogo" it first toward and then away from the asteroid, so that half of the time it was modifying the asteroid's orbit. Such a craft is within present technology, and could be built and deployed quickly.
Russell Johnston
A craft with one engine would do, if the engine were flipped (rotating against a counterweight) repeatedly, to "pogo" it first toward and then away from the asteroid, so that half of the time it was modifying the asteroid's orbit. Such a craft is within present technology, and could be built and deployed quickly.
Russell Johnston
