Or, Good vs Great Acting. Walking the tightrope between Boldness and Truth. And us acting students.

A Utter's observations about G Clooney vs V Farmiga in "Up in the Air" is one of the best descriptions/definitions of the difference between good acting and great acting I have ever seen.

OR, Brando, DeNiro and us acting students: In Andrew's class last night he talked about plot objectives and vulnerability (and how it must expressed in a positive light but that's a subject for another
day).

For me, Brando in Waterfront and Streetcar, and, DeNiro in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, and, Sam Jackson in Pulp, are examples of great actors walking the tightrope between Boldness and Truth. It seems to me that a bold choice necessarily means the actor is making himself vulnerable. Open.

Paraphrasing points Andrew makes in his acting class, they made bold choices that include a vulnerability that invites us in to experience something beyond the watchable. They are bad motherfuckers who we care about. In my examples
Brando and DeNiro make every scene about his relationship with the other person in the scene not himself – even in, "You talking to me," DeNiro is making the scene about us, the audience. The very fact that they need something from someone means they are making themselves vulnerable. Boldly Vulnerable.

So, as an acting student working on a scene, every now and then, I am able to make the scene about the other person. What I need from my scene partner. I am vulnerable.

So for a few brief moments I am not playing a type, a result or a state of being. My performance is in some small way true and I am vulnerable. I am actually acting. Not well. But acting. The acting student's first baby step in trying to walk the tightrope between Boldness and Truth.

So V Farmiga is blodly vulnerable. G Clooney is just vulnerable. And an acting student has an inkling of the bulls eye at the center of the concentric rings of the target.

Jim

Thanks for commenting.

Interesting that you bring up "O Brother Where Art Thou?". I thought Clooney was again outshined by a female costar in that movie, in that case Holly Hunter. But in that case, he was trying to play a bumbler, and couldn't rely on his natural savior-faire. I actually found him to be a bit lacking in the "watchable" department in that. I found his performance to be a bit broad. Perhaps that is what you are talking about when you say he made bold choices. When I talk about boldness, I mean something very specific, which perhaps I should have made clearer: by boldness I mean first and foremost that the actor invests boldly in the relationships, that he finds it in himself to care deeply about them. I'm afraid I haven't yet seen Clooney do that in anything. I didn't see Michael Clayton, perhaps there it happens.