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| The Madness of "Full Method" Acting |
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Nate recaps a video essay that explores the problem with associating performances based on The Method as the standard for "good" acting.
The other day, I watched a highly insightful video essay titled The Problem with Method Acting by YouTuber and graduate student BroeyDeschanel (Maia). In it, she breaks down how The Method system made infamous by Lee Strasberg diverged from and mutated out of Konstantin Stanislavsky's original system for heightening realism in theatric performances.
More crucially, she explores how The Method — which famously emphasizes the complete devotion of the actor to their role to the point of "losing themselves" — became pedestalized as the standard for "good" acting as embodied by the likes of Daniel Day Lewis, Christian Bale, Al Pacino, Jared Leto and Leonardo Dicaprio (among others).
If you're familiar with any of those actors, you've no doubt also heard about the on-set antics and other controversial antics they took to prepare for their roles, many of which made headlines (as well as inconvenience and discomfort for co-star and crew alike).
Throughout the essay, Broey takes the bro's approach to mythologizing the individual's life-or-death "struggle" for the art and threads it through the legitimizing of what Christian Bale famously called "a sissy job" before connecting it to the double standard where both female and minority actors don't enjoy the same leeway to "go full method" (even if they wanted to label themselves as such).
In brief, it would be if Bruce Gilden's infamous style of intrusive ambush-style street photography was held as the gold standard for capturing candid reactions — which it thankfully isn't. But for acting, the cult-like aura of The Method is bound to linger in Hollywood for maybe another generation, even as audiences and aspiring performers alike discover the individual quick-and-dirty tricks in an actor's toolbox does not the art make.
- Nate
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The Bulletin
Listen and see the latest from MAEKAN and the community. |
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Editor's Letter — July 2021: "It’s All in the Momentum"
Eugene talks about the importance of momentum a device for progress. Momentum has carried us through to the recent launch of our shop but with new changes on the horizon, we also explore what that means for the team going forward.
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| For Your A-10-tion |
The best links from across the Internet.
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1. 🤷 The Metaverse as Explained by the New York Times
A breakdown of the multi-faceted (so far unrealized) virtual world as seen by those in the worlds of crypto, gaming, cart and the Internet itself.
2. 🔥 Coleen Baik on building a "what's next" deck
The artist, designer and MAEKAN community members talks about her Keynote-powered deck building process to ground and re-acquaint herself with the art she'd stopped working on. In 10 steps, she lays out how she was able to arrange an emotional and amorphous task into a linear actionable plan:
"Slides force you to articulate thoughts in sequence, in the context of a narrative. It puts you into the mind-frame of connecting the dots for someone, of telling a story. A deck of slides must be clear, concise, and easy to follow in order to be effective. It’s ideal for communicating complex ideas. At the same time, slides free you from the onus of up-front organization because they’re so easy to rearrange, reorder, and regroup. You can be pithy in the body while dumping longer thoughts into presenter notes to riff from. You can rely heavily on visuals."
3. 🛍️ After 7 years and the $835 million spent, the LVMH-refurbished Paris department store La Samaritaine reopens.
Originally slated to re-open in 2020, the department store was purchased by the luxury brand in 2001 and was deemed unsafe for use. After seven years of renos, the reopened space now includes a luxury hotel, beauty salon, spa, and 12 restaurants.
4. 💵 The disproportionate impact of Elon Musk's supermoney.
People and companies betting on the performance of companies like Tesla can create new opportunities but also inequalities. Here's a comparison of the betting economy of speculative investment versus the operating economy and how it creates disproportionate amounts of wealth.
5. ☑️ Instagram enables businesses to label themselves as Black-owned.
The social media app recently allowed Black-owned businesses operating in America to designate themselves as such and display a label on their profile. This option is now unlocked in a business's options under a new Diversity Info setting. Of the new implementation, Instagram's product lead for equity Rachel Brooks said in a statement:
“As the Black community continues to push culture forward and create many of the global trends that we see on Instagram, it’s important that we find ways at Instagram to help strengthen such a rich and vibrant community. Today, that starts with creating more opportunities for economic empowerment directly within Black communities. We understand the real challenges experienced by many Black-owned businesses, particularly over the last year, and appreciate efforts to hold people and companies, even Instagram, accountable to the community that drives culture forward.”
6. 🎮 How Taiwanese and Hong Kong game developers fit into China's growing game market
China's geopolitical sway is impacting the comparatively smaller game industries of nearby Hong Kong and Taiwan as they attempt to navigate uncertainties. Besides the obvious censorship that applies to game content, there is the issue of not being able to access English-speaking markets, thus forcing independent developers to aim for Mainland Chinese tastes and regulations.
7. 🕹️ Watch: NFT Gaming in the Philippines
A small community in the rural Philippines is demonstrating the real-world potential of earning cryptocurrency income through gaming (Axie Infinity) in emerging economies where jobs and government relief measures are limited.
8. 📱 Facebook is pulling a TikTok and trying to woo creators.
There are definite challenges that the social media giant faces in trying to attract creators — and treading YouTube and now TikTok's turf. The big question remains, can Facebook close the gap with its competitors simply with the allure of money?
9. 🏢 How WeWork made a Potemkin village of its offices.
A new book titled The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion describe how the co-working space founder forced staff to "activate the space" by throwing parties, filling empty desks, and blasting Biggie to give the impression of a more exciting company when investors dropped by.
10. 🧠 The danger of oversimplifying things.
Adrian H. Raudaschl warns of the pitfalls of reducing complex systems to convenient ideas and forming our opinions based on those oversimplifications. As he explains:
"We have robbed people of the work to develop an informed opinion; which only further polarises rationalisation in society. So what is wrong with living like this? If the person is happy, feels empowered and understands their value in society, what more could one ask for? The problem exists in the mismatch between perceived understanding and the thing to understand itself. When we decide that things need to change and try to apply “cause and effect” thinking to a complex problem, nothing will work. It’s only when things go wrong is our complacency revealed to us."
Artist Mariko Kusumoto's nature-inspired fabric sculptures.
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