All sorts of physical businesses are suffering during this global pandemic and I know many people, dependent on in-person gigs for their livelihood who now have no income stream (to say nothing of creative freelancers, as one Nation article notes).
So this video posted last week by Joseph Haj, artistic director of the Guthrie Theater resonated:
I was lucky enough to grow up going to the theater and live performances frequently, something I’ve tried to pass on to my kids. I hope that time will come again soon.
It could be because we all have a bit more time to think about how we’ll reflect back on these days, or how we’re trying to help our children through this, but this video hit me particularly now.
With apologies to Polonius, I think I’ll lead with this one in addressing my own Laertes.
One of the nice things about his work was that his characters were perfectly at east with who they were, be it an alien, a corrupt sheriff, or entrepreneurial pilot. If he turned out to be a villain, his character would metaphorically or literally shrug, as if to say, “Do you get surprised that a wolf is a carnivore?”
My all-time favorite scene with Brian Dennehy comes from Never Cry Wolf below:
The beauty of this scene is all the character and clues about motivation that Dennehy puts into Rosie. You think it’s just a fun, kooky scene when you first watch the film, but when Rosie turns up later in the film, you realize that everything he does is completely in line with what he told you in the beginning. His entire performance, as with so many of his others, is a kind of zen: totally in the moment.
I’ve played a wide number of characters over the years, including henpecked husbands, Shakespearean fools, and villainous muleteers (I know, is there any other kind?).
But one character type I seem to have gotten several times is that of the well-intentioned jerk (an invaluable archetype in a number of training videos I’ve been a part of).
He’s just saying…
So perhaps it’s only fitting that, for a modern, social media kind of passion play, I get to be a doubting disciple. You can check it out on The Tandem Bicycle page on Facebook and evidently also on Instagram.
Based on the text, I pitched it as a modern vlogger/pundit, not unlike some of the pundits you see on TV who don’t really want change if someone in authority will be put out.
A towering presence in cinema –literal and figurative– had died. Max von Sydow, an actor we’ve seen on screens since the 1950s, has died at the age of 90.
You can read (and listen) to accounts in the BBC, Variety, and NPR among many others.
What struck many of us moviegoers was the wide range of parts he would play… and could play with such quiet conviction. Here is a man who played the Son of God as well as the Eternal Adversary. But whether as tormentor or tormented, he would bring a bit of gravitas to whatever work he was in, even if the work was more than a little cartoony (I’m looking at you, Ming).
You never ask why Max von Sydow is in a film, but you may ask, “How much?”
His unequivocally prolific body of work means that audiences will find him in dozens of films for decades to come — and personally, that has always been a delight. Especially for some of his later work, where he moved from leading man to supporting character, his presence wasn’t always announced, so I adored his appearance in Intacto and wished for a few more scenes of him in Star Wars, but enjoyed it nonetheless.
It’s hard to wrap your head around him being gone.
As some have noted, he’s been a presence in our cinema lives for so long, it’s hard to imagine him not popping up again in this TV show or that movie, whether to be chilling or entertaining, but always affecting.
It’s been one amazing chess game, sir. Well played.
I haven’t been in a stage production for an age, but I was both on stage and backstage enough times to lose count — and I was a theatergoer long before that.
Larry Blyden
So I greatly appreciated Mark Evanier sharing actor, director, and all-around theatrical Larry Blyden‘s theatrical laws. Laws, do you hear?
Okay, to be honest, I haven’t always followed Law #5 or Law #10, but I definitely do my best with Law #17. Law #2 applies to films as well as plays and Law #6 applies just about everywhere.
So if you feel the need for greater regulation, check ’em out.
How does Space Ghost take rejection? Stoically. Very Stoically.
I’ve linked to Mark Evanier’s series on rejection before. It’s very useful for writers — and many entries perfectly connect to film and TV actors and voiceover artists.
This past weekend, I was talking about the National Theater Institute of which I am quite a happy alumnus. They practice a maxim of “Risk. Fail. Risk again” which is kind of like the positive spin of the War Boys’ outlook in Mad Max: Fury Road. Same flamethrower guitars (metaphorically), less desolation.
I’m pretty sure this was a movement class we took. My memory is hazy.
But that’s all artsy stuff, what about science? This is where David Noonan writing in Scientific American comes in. Apparently, some folks did some “big data” crunching and have a theory that an integral part of success is failure.
And if that isn’t something to motivate you on a Monday, um, I guess focus on being shiny and chrome?
For those of you who aren’t adverse to making lists and know that producing a film means you need to know what Inland Marine insurance is, this is the nitty-gritty (albeit lightning-paced) panel for you as we go through the unglamorous aspects of filmmaking.
