Film Culture (Winter 1955)

Claustrophobia is the fear of being confined in a closed room. He mentioned this to Sigmund Freud. Freud took the doctor by the shoulders and shook him like a puppy when he was asked why every actor had this phobia, and roared that everyone with claustrophobia becomes an actor. It is related that when Sir Henry Irving heard that another actor was going to play Hamlet he exclaimed: “Good God! How does he know he won't do himself a grievous physical injury!’ I should like to add that the audience, too, can be badly hurt. Acting is not the memorizing of lines while wearing a disguise, but the clear reconstruction of the thoughts that cause the actions and the lines. This is not easy. In the finest sense of the word, the actor is not only an interpreter, and not only a carrier of ideas that originate in others, but himself can be (though not without difficulty) a good creative artist. He is the mechanic who can take the word of the playwright and the instructions of the director and fuse the two with all the complicated elements of which he himself is composed to give fluent voice to inspiring ideas, with an effect so strong that one is impressed with the meaning of even the simplest word. » It is his function at his best to tear emotion and mind apart and put them together again in orderly condition. The actor also can take the loftiest sentiment and make it ridiculous, and he can take what apparently is an absurd idea and with it illuminate the most obscure problem. He can give us clear sight instead of darkness as readily as a flash of lightning can show what the deepest night contains. He can portray sin for us in its ugliest form and can purge any evil desire by depicting the brutality of the criminal and his tormented history. He offers us breathless excitement and thrill, no less strong because it is vicarious. He can take our thoughts into his body, and return them safe and sound when the curtain falls. He makes us laugh at human stupidity, and though we prefer not to recognize ourselves, we always notice the resemblance to a neighbor. He can make us howl at the most powerful king, and make us respect a fool. He can make the ugliest qualities attractive by investing them with charm and grace, and he can take a fine sentiment and deliver it to be absurd. Those who sometimes stand in the snow and rain to see a tired actor, divested of his trappings and paint, come hurrying out of the stage door, may or may not know that this exhausted animal has just pulled out of himself energy enough to swim the Fnelish Channel. But there are some enthusiasts who have sensed that it can be as heroic to struggle with brain and nerves as it is to conquer the elements and have been so responsive that they have carried the actor for miles on their shoulders to his home. They still do that to bull-fighters when the bull-fighter succeeds in making vivid the qualities of skill and courage. But a maddened bull is easv to see. Not so easy to perceive is the problem of the actor. Life itself may often teach us little except discouragement,. pettiness, and care, and we are grateful to those who recall our ideals and inspire courage and give us new and unsuspected strength. The actor can make us walk out of a theatre with determination to conquer our 2 fears, and he can empty our bag of troubles as if we were newly born. The actor can make us aware of the beauty of something we have seen every day and until now thought ugly—he can make us feel as if we have never before really seen a human being, but he can also make us feel as if we never want to see another. Some of us are partial to the idea that all the world’s a stage with exits and entrances, but for the moment, I confine myself to the man or woman who is professionally known as an actor or actress, and who is paid for it, sometimes with bags of gold, though more often with copper pennies. The pay that an actor receives is not a measure of his worth and many a strutter, making as much noise as a sack full of tin cans, has become rich. The acquisition of wealth is a study in itself. Were quality valued according to income the armament profiteer would be the greatest actor. One of the startling tragedies in our profession was caused by paying an actor ten thousand dollars a week and not permitting him to act at all. I have known many actors and actresses. Some of them were good and some of them were bad, but among the good ones I often found many despicable traits and, among the worst, fine qualities. I don’t believe that actors are essentially different from others, nor that they all get on a stage, nor that they all remain actors. I do believe that they seek exposure more than others, and that a lack of self-esteem drives them to solicit praise and applause. The key to this behavior is the same as the key to the behavior of others—it is to be found in the first few helpless years of life. Since I cannot discuss the great actors who were before my time, my observations must be based on those whom I have myself witnessed. I did see Sarah Bernhardt both on the stage and in films, but only when she was old and crippled, and I have seen all those reputed to be great since. Not always was I impressed. I have been moved and inspired by many lesser known actors and actresses on hundreds of different stages in many corners of the world. But rarely, if ever, have I been inspired or moved by a performer in the films, though I may have been impressed by the film itself. There is a very important technical reason for this. On the stage an actor is sent out before an audience on his own, though he may be instructed to the hilt. But, once in front of the footlights, he must establish his own contact with the audience and build a continuity of action and thought. The destiny of his performance is in his own hands. He can gauge the response of the audience clearly —or at least not disregard its testimony easily. He would be a fool to ignore the fact that an intended joke fails to gain response or that an exaggerated gesture is greeted with tittering. (I do not rule out the possibility that fools fail to achieve success). He is the boss of his own body and of his own mind, knows without any doubt the direction from which he is being watched and himself relays directly everything he thinks and feels to the audience. All this is not the case in motion pictures. Though the photographed actor is popularized and reproduced so that he can be adored in Bombay, as well as in Milwaukee, and, unlike the actor in the flesh, can appear in both