Where'd All the Method Acting Go?

Still Processing

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.8 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the 20th century, method acting was everywhere. Actors went to extreme lengths to inhabit the complicated psyche of a character, sometimes making audiences deeply uncomfortable. Think Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull” or Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now.” But in 2022, in our heyday of superhero blockbusters and bingeable story lines, the Method seems to be fading away. Wesley invites Isaac Butler — critic, historian and author of “The Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Act” — to dissect the Method. They discuss where it came from, its most legendary practitioners, and whether Hollywood has a place for it today.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Isaac Butler, Wesley Morris.
0:02.6	You've spent your life studying acting.
0:05.0	And now I want to talk to you about the acting in a major movie from 1984.
0:10.9	It's called Supergirl, based on the characters from DC Comics,
0:14.4	and I just need you to explain to me what the hell is happening.
0:18.0	Round and round they go, where they stop.
0:23.9	Helen Slater stars as Supergirl.
0:26.6	They done away as her arch nemesis, Selena, and watching them act together,
0:32.1	it's like they're in two different movies.
0:34.1	I am Selena.
0:37.1	Diodinus Ocatania, priestess of Seknid, I am the ultimate siren of Endor,
0:43.1	and you little lady are trespassing on private property.
0:49.6	I am Cara of Argo City, daughter of Alora and Zorrell.
0:54.4	And I don't scare easily.
0:57.1	No.
0:58.7	No.
1:00.0	They are absolutely in two different movies.
1:02.4	You have Faye Dunway, who is really true in the scenery,
1:06.1	and giving this kind of grand performance of this witch character,
1:10.3	and she's just like really going for it, and it's big and embodied,
1:14.4	and really fun to watch.
1:16.2	And then Helen Slater's sort of much more unwashed kind of natural,
	...

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