Forgacs, David, 2011, ‘Face, body, voice, movement: Antonioni and Actors [Excerpt]’ in Rhodes, John David (ed.) & Rascaroli, Laura (ed.), Antonioni : Centenary essays, Palgrave Macmillan, New York/Basingstoke, pp. 167-181.
Linking nicely with my reflections regarding acting from Week 5, this week’s reading examines Michelangelo Antonioni’s unique approach to directing actors.
Opposite to my takeaway last week that good directors can empathise with their actors, this essay outlines Antonioni’s approach as the direct opposite. The essay opens with the following quote from the director: “Carne admires actors, and this is exactly what great directors of actors do not do, Stenberg for example. Indeed, Stenberg goes further: he despises them, but in despising them he dominates them”. Immediately I do not agree with this statement from my own experiences, as I believe a director should create a rapport and form a team relationship with their actors. However, I am intrigued as through this different approach, Antonioni creates incredibly fascinating and compelling cinematic products.
Antonioni’s “unorthodox” view is that “the actor is a Trojan horse in the director’s citadel”. His method of withholding information from actors until the last minute and manipulating them to get the performance he wants, even slapping an actress to make her cry in one instance, do indeed reflect the fact that he does not see actors as the most important piece of the puzzle when it comes to filmmaking.
I think it is perhaps this viewpoint of actors being just like “moving space” that separates Antonioni’s products from the rest and makes them such masterpieces. When we saw the snippet of Red Dessert in class, I was astounded by the way he covered the space and the way he had the actors move around it. They were never stationary; it was as if the characters’ movement in the space and in relation to each other was much more captivating, and told us more about their relationship, than the dialogue itself.
In this way, the actors in Antonioni’s films are not presented as the central piece that everything else revolves around. Instead, they really are just like moving pieces of mise en scene – but it is this representation that makes Antonioni’s films so special. All of his shots and scenes are so intricately covered, and it is the focus on the actors’ constant weaving and interaction with the space that creates such multi-dimensional and fascinating products; that makes his films masterpieces of cinematic art.
