Screen Acting

While not everyone would agree with Alfred Hitchcock’s notorious remark that ‘actors are cattle’, there is little understanding of the work that film actors do. Yet audience enthusiasm for, or dislike of, actors and their style of performance is a crucial part of the filmgoing experience. From the mannered stylisms of the silent era to Lee Strasbourg’s ‘method’ acting and the improvisation techniques of directors such as Mike Leigh, Screen Acting evaluates the styles and techniques of cinema acting. Using the history of screen acting as a means of evaluating the style and approach of performers, the contributors critically examine the work of individual studio stars such as Buster Keaton, Bette Davis and Susan Sarandon, exploring the ways in which different actors have approached their art, and looking at the relationship between performance in the theatre, on film and television through interviews with contemporary actors such as Ian Richardson and Helen Shaver.
Exploring the relationship between script and performance, and drawing out the individual elements of performance such as the awareness of the frame, and the use of voice and physique to embody a character, Screen Acting reveals the centrality of the actor’s performance to a film’s success, and offers new directions for the study of performance on film. Cynthia Baron, Sharon Marie Carnickie, Susan Knobloch, Paul McDonald, David Mayer, Roberta E. Pearson, Gianluca Sergi, Martin Shingler, Carole Zucker.

Author Biography

Contributors: Cynthia Baron, Sharon Marie Carnicke, Helen Day-Mayer, Susan Knobloch, Paul MacDonald, David Mayer, Roberta E. Pearson, Martin Shingler, Janet Sonenberg , Carole Zucker^l Alan Lovell is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Staffordshire University. Peter Kramer is at the University of East Anglia.