This linking of performance and coverage is yet another subject I had genuinely never even considered prior to starting this class – but as the weeks have gone on it has become a topic I’m quite intensely interested in, as it relates directly back to the craft I’m most interested in, being cinematography, and in particular how the DP works with actors and the ways in which performance can enhance cinematography and vice versa. A lot of the sort of research I’ve been going into on this topic (which I’ll elaborate on more in the research component of this assignment), has been to do with the ways a DP can enable an actor to deliver their best performance, or compensate if they aren’t up to scratch. The sort of approach I’ve been reading and hearing most about from current day filmmakers seems to suggest a sort of reverence for the actor and a deep respect and appreciation for their craft – so much so that other elements of filmmaking often seem to be molded around making an actor’s job more seamless. For this reason I found these quotes from Michelangelo Antonioni to be extremely interesting and also quite troubling in how inhumane some of it comes across – but nonetheless interesting in the counterpoint it forms to what would seem to be a more ‘modern’ approach to director/actor relations.
The most critical part of this reading is the assertion that actors should be treated no differently and as no more significant than other elements within the frame – walls, trees, clouds, etc. While this sort of approach to direction and performance has the potential to create huge amount of issues in terms of the working conditions of really everyone on set (a potential which would appear to have been realised, based on some of the quotes from the reading), but with that said, it also has the potential to render a very different kind of film – one in which all elements of the film and the frame are preferenced equally. This side of things, I have absolutely no issue with, and in many ways I agree. Performance should not be entirely preeminent over all other aspects of filmmaking – to suggest as much would be, in my opinion, extremely detrimental to the quality of a film. The issue I have with this approach is not the equality of actors with objects, lighting sound, etc. – but rather the way in which Antonioni seems to have achieved this not by bringing these other elements up to the same importance of actors and performance, but by dragging actors down to the level of objects. This aspect of Antonioni’s approach is why I simply can’t give much credence to his philosophy. It is worth acknowledging that I have absolutely no prior knowledge of him or his work, and I’m basing my judgment entirely off the reading. But he does seem like a bit of a bastard…
As we’ve discussed through the semester, performance is extremely important to decoupage. A great performance enables a great director (the inverse is also true). However, I don’t feel that ‘despising’ and ‘dominating’ actors is really justified – even if it produces a great performance. Filmmaking is and should remain, collaborative. While there is certainly a chain of command on a film set – that doesn’t mean that everyone working on a set should not be treated with the same respect as you would treat the director themself. As we’ve discussed in class, the ability of actors to create the performances they do, big and small, is something that should be celebrated and facilitated – not seen as something to be exploited by a director who seems to be taking themself quite a bit too seriously.