After a scene (and the entire movie), do you ever think "If that really happened and was captured on video, that's exactly the way it would look"?
shareSession 9 is another one
Aside from Caruso, who I don't think very highly of as an actor, the rest of the cast, especially Peter Mullan come off as very realistic laborers trying to meet a deadline under sinister circumstances
Quite a good chiller if you haven't seen it
Great example.
shareMy favourite horror.
I agree about carusso. Wish they had cast somebody else tbh.
Caruso's performances always strike me as overly 'posey' and self aware
He looks like the average neighborhood dad who should be mowing the grass but he acts like a romantic/heroic lead...it just doesn't work at all
I never feel that way. If actors acted exactly the way we did it real life, it would look like bad acting. I think it's because we are used to movie acting.
shareThis. Acting should be exaggerated.
Good acting is an illusion of realism while exaggerating things. That's the hard part.
Realism is most often not clear. When a real person is thinking an evil thing to do, his face doesn't actually turn evil. In real life, a sad person doesn't always look sad. Some people look sad all the time, even when they're happy. Some people look happy, even when they're dying inside.
If movies are realistic like that, audience would just be all confused.
Movies are meant to tell stories, not simply some exact depictions of reality.
Exactly. It would be difficult to see subtly if we acted as we would in real life. But shot blocking is also a thing. How many times do we see two people talking and one of them turns around and cries? The then around makes it more emotional.
shareThat's even scarier, that there is no independence in acting that it seems like there's only one kind - "movie acting", but I've seen non-mainstream stuff, so I'll have to disagree.
shareI agree with you. They would be completely boring. I think they almost HAVE to exaggerate in order to hold your attention. But they can't exaggerate too much or it would look forced.
Also, no one talks like people do on movies or tv. I have been watching The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and although it's a very fun and entertaining show, the characters (especially the main character) talk much faster than anyone I know in real life. If normal people talked that fast, you would back away slowly because they would just come across totally frenetic. Also they would keep tripping over their words, talking so fast.
For me, a good actor disappears into the role so you think of them as a real person instead of an actor. I read somewhere that actors hate it when fans think they are really like their character. But I think it is a big compliment, because it means they inhabited the role so well that fans don't even realize the actor is not really like that. I guess it's not that great when the role is someone who isn't very likeable though :)
Can you imagine if actors acted the way we do in real life? I would feel like I might as well go to a coffee shop and watch two people. They need to dramatize to make things feel more effective.
shareMaybe Marky Mark in Boogies Nights. The scene where he's on the couch near the end, and they hold on him for like 2 minutes, and Jesse's girl is playing, and he's thinking about...something. This scene has always fascinated me. He's working something out in his head, but it's not big and showy. I think he's very good in the rest of the film too, but this scene stands out to me, and feels like a captured moment.
shareI love when an actor captures something really subtle like that.
shareThere is an Italian genre of films know as Euro crime or poliziotteschi that were mostly made in the 70ās that fit this bill to a certain degree. Most movies in the genre are rough, gritty and brutal with many of the actors doing their own stunts which are are full of car chases and fist fights. They are devoid of political correctness and the dreaded Hollywood formula. Not once will you see someone walk away from an explosion in the background without flinching. š
shareI think the unflinching explosion in American movies is a great example of the way acting styles are nothing like real life. But we accept them, and I think for a long time most of us have enjoyed the obligatory shot of the bada$$ hero walking away unflinchingly as the bomb explodes behind him. Now maybe it's a cliche and we'll move on to some other equally stylized reaction to explosions....
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