Playing to the Camera : Film Actors Discuss Their Craft

by Edited by Bert Cardullo, Harry Geduld, Ronald Gottesman, and Leigh Woods; Foreword by Stanley Kauffmann

• ISBN13: 9780300070514
• ISBN10: 0300070519
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1999-11-10
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

In this lively anthology, leading film actors from the silent era to the present -- Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Marcello Mastroianni, Henry Fonda, Meryl Streep, and many others -- describe the art and technique of acting for film. Illustrated with over fifty movie stills, the book provides a fascinating mix of shoptalk, anecdotal history, personal iniscence, philosophy, and practical acting advice from a stellar cast of favorite screen performers.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Stanley Kauffmann
Preface	xiii
Ronald Gottesman
Introduction	1	(14)
Leigh Woods
Part 1 The Silent Performance	15	(38)
Acting for the Films in 1912	19	(3)
Charles Graham
My Autobiography	22	(6)
Charles Chaplin
The ``New Art''	28	(4)
E. H. Sothern
Screen Acting	32	(8)
Mae Marsh
The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me	40	(6)
Lillian Gish
Dialogue with the Actress	46	(7)
Louise Brooks
Part 2 Finding a Voice	53	(30)
The New Stage Fright: Talking Pictures	57	(8)
Louise Closser Hale
Acting in Talking Pictures	65	(1)
Betty Compson
What the Public Wants	66	(3)
Greta Garbo
My Ten Years in the Studios	69	(5)
George Arliss
Lorenzo Goes to Hollywood	74	(5)
Edward Arnold
The Actor	79	(4)
Lionel Barrymore
Part 3 European Acting	83	(88)
Stage and Screen: The British	85	(4)
Film Acting	89	(5)
Robert Donat
The Film Actor	94	(4)
Eric Portman
Mask or Face	98	(9)
Michael Redgrave
Talking About Acting	107	(10)
Albert Finney
Mary Ure
On Acting	117	(6)
Laurence Olivier
Acting and Ideology: The Soviets	119	(4)
Notes of a Soviet Actor	123	(7)
Nikolai K. Cherkasov
Stanislavsky's System in the Cinema	130	(8)
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Actor's Feeling and Director's Form	138	(11)
Michael Chekhov
Continental Alternatives	146	(3)
Some Notes on Acting	149	(3)
Mai Zetterling
The Actor, a Witness of His Time	152	(3)
Jean-Louis Trintignant
The Game of Truth	155	(2)
Marcello Mastroianni
Conversation with the Actress	157	(8)
Liv Ullmann
Human Masks Are Dangerous	165	(6)
Klaus Maria Brandauer
Part 4 Hollywood Acting	171	(156)
The Golden Age of the Studios	173	(4)
The Actress Plays Her Part	177	(8)
Bette Davis
A Life on Film	185	(4)
Mary Astor
The Player: A Profile of an Art	189	(4)
Joan Crawford
Notes on Film Acting	193	(7)
Hume Cronyn
The Many-Splendored Actor	200	(10)
James Stewart
Reflections on Forty Years of Make-Believe	210	(13)
Henry Fonda
The Business of Film Acting	220	(3)
Interview with the Actress	223	(4)
Gloria Swanson
Dialogue on Screen Acting	227	(5)
Katharine Hepburn
Walking the Hollywood Color Line	232	(10)
Sidney Poitier
When Women Were in the Movies	242	(5)
Meryl Streep
``Commercial'' Isn't a Dirty Word, Any More Than ``Comedy''	247	(20)
Jeff Daniels
The Method Revisited and Matters of Style	263	(4)
Conversation with the Actor	267	(8)
Jack Lemmon
The Playboy Interview	275	(5)
Marlon Brando
Dialogue with the Actor	280	(13)
Robert De Niro
Interview with the Actor	293	(9)
Dustin Hoffman
``The Bird Is on His Own''	302	(7)
Jack Nicholson
``Acting Has to Be About Something Else''	309	(18)
Lindsay Crouse
Biographies of Film Actors	327	(20)
Select Bibliography	347	(14)
Index	361