Lolita es primero que todo una novela de Vladimir Nabokov, hay dos versiones de la peli pero sólo un guión fue escrito por el mismo Nabokov.

Esta entrada tuvo como intención principal hablar sobre esa Lolita, la de Stanley Kubrick filmada en 1962 y protagonizada por James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon y Peter Sellers. Kubrik acostumbró a basar sus pelis en novelas escritas, lo hizo con The Shinning de Stephen King en 1980, lo hizo con A Clockwork Orange de Anthony Burgess en 1971, con 2001: A Space Odissey de Arthur C. Clarke y lo hizo con Lolita. Pero no sólo se basaba en ellas, acostumbraba a escribir los guiones con sus camaradas novelistas y ya sabemos que cuando un director escribe tiene el control completo sobre lo que quiere mostrar.

A medida que pensaba en escribir esta entrada, se me fue ocurriendo que sería divertido hacer un pequeño paralelo con la otra Lolita, la de 1997 dirigida por Adrian Lyne y protagonizada por Jeremy Irons, Melanie Griffith, Dominique Swain y Frank Langella.

La Lolita de 1997 tiene algo positivo y es que no es una copia fiel, es una interpretación y como tal tiene sus puntos positivos y negativos.

En ambas, las actuaciones de Mason y Irons interpretando a Humbert son excelentes. Manejan el mismo dilema y al final se crea la misma reticenci,a del espectador, hacia la perversa dominancia del adulto sobre la adolescente que lo lleva a una psicótica paranoia.

En ambas, las actuaciones de Winters y de Griffith interpretando a Charlotte Haze son espectaculares aunque me inclino más por una menos sobreactuada Griffith; Winters maneja más una argumentación lírica basada en su capacitación teatral en el Actor’s Studio de Nueva York.

Las Lolitas son particularmente sensuales ambas, no se puede distinguir cuál es más perturbadora o cuál desempeñó un mejor papel. Aunque la historia habla y Swain se llevó todas las nominaciones y premios de su obra, no hay que negar que su Lolita es un producto creado a partir de Lyon que tiende a ser mucho más escalofriantemente perversa sin ser tan insinuante.

La gran diferencia al parecer entonces son los Clare Quilty’s de cada una de las obras. Mientras en la Lolita de Kubrick este personaje es un vivaz y polífacético escritor que ha perseguido a Lolita toda su vida, ha tenido un perverso amorío con ella mucho antes de sus dieciseís años y tiene el poder de domarla a su antojo, en la Lolita de Lyne el Quilty es un señor más entrado en años, mucho más calmado sedentario. Mientras el Quilty de Sellers es acompañado por una extraña femina que induce a una perversión más ordinaria donde se implica tríos sexuales con menores, el Quilty de Langella está acompañado de un gato (o gata, magnífico chiste de interpretación), su aspecto es mucho más homosexual y su perversión tiende a ser más pedofílica donde el sexo de sus efebos al final no es un item importante de discusión. El Quilty de Sellers es más divertido, más protagonista, es un elemento importante en la obra, su caracterización devela un desarrollo psicológico del personaje; el Quilty de Langella es un accidente no muy claro para el espectador, por lo que, se podría concluir entonces que con una mejor dirección el papel de Langella hubiera podido ser mejor aprovechado.

Para mi, personalmente, es más perturbadora la peli de Kubrick que en 1962 con el sólo planteamiento del tema estaba siendo bastante agudo en su polémica. Lyne por el contrario en aras de trascender esa polémica le dió más importancia al personaje de Dolores Haze con insinuanciones más provocativas y alusiones mucho más agresivas sexualmente.

Fue muy divertido observarlas pero fue sobretodo muy divertido la grata sorpresa de Sellers que al final fue un consentido de Kubrick en un par de pelis suyas más.

L’art du portrait est un exercice paradoxal, fondé sur un compromis entre le visible et l’inconnu. Si, de surcroît, le sujet est acteur, l’ambiguïté se démultiplie. Comment parler de lui ? Peut-on se permettre de l’identifier aux personnages qu’il interprète et s’abandonner à la merveilleuse confusion qui l’auréole de vies, de biographies rêvées ? Ou doit-on sèchement s’en tenir à l’homme, débarrassé de ses rôles, dénudé de ses costumes ? Ce parfait inconnu n’est guère plus qu’un fantasme constitué de propos décousus détachés de leur contexte, d’apparitions publiques parfois désincarnées. Les deux angles ont leurs limites et leurs séductions, auxquelles il faut encore ajouter l’indécence d’une démarche qui, d’une façon ou d’une autre, trahit le cinéma. Peut-être vaut-il mieux, avec un soupçon de mauvaise foi,  poser la question autrement. S’intéresser aux fins – au plaisir – plutôt qu’à la légitimité. Si l’acteur est un corps qui relie la fiction au réel, il n’en reste pas moins fondamentalement  un étranger. Dès lors, quelle validité peut avoir un discours sur un être aussi insaisissable ? A toutes ces décourageantes apories, Louis Garrel apporte lui-même une réponse – et c’est l’évidence même.

Il s’agit d’une longue interview, publiée en été 2008 dans Les Cahiers du Cinéma, où l’on voit qu’en douze pages, Louis Garrel n’évoque pas d’autre sujet que son travail, et finit par ne parler, en toute logique, que du métier d’acteur. Le problème de la pertinence ne se pose dès lors, plus du tout. La finalité de toute critique – augmenter l’œuvre initiale d’une lecture subjective – correspond à celle du dialogue avec l’artiste, qui est d’acquérir des connaissances techniques. Cela, Louis Garrel le comprend profondément, et même, il le revendique. Ce positionnement n’est pas sans rapport avec l’ambiguïté de son cheminement personnel. En effet, Louis Garrel appartient, au propre et au figuré, à une famille de cinéma. Du côté paternel, un réalisateur, Philippe, qu’il désigne d’ailleurs par son prénom, et un acteur Maurice, son grand-père ; du côté maternel, l’actrice Brigitte Sy. A la frontière entre famille de sang et famille symbolique, son parrain, Jean-Pierre Léaud, est une des figures les plus marquantes de la Nouvelle Vague. Louis Garrel est né en 1983, mais on pourrait facilement l’antidater, comme si, au sein d’une famille si particulière, il se devait non pas d’assurer la relève, mais d’immortaliser le passé en lui sacrifiant sa jeunesse. Il figure très jeune dans les films de son père ; cette passation incestueuse atteint sa plénitude dans le diptyque « Les amants réguliers » et « La frontière de l’aube ». L’éducation de Louis se fait donc sur les planches et les plateaux, territoires certainement plus attractifs qu’un système scolaire qu’il ne suivra pas jusqu’au bac, préférant s’inscrire en cours d’art dramatique puis au Conservatoire. Cette formation est significative de son caractère. Employé très jeune au cinéma, engagé dans les activités théâtrales de son lycée, rien ne l’oblige à s’embarrasser d’un apprentissage difficile, exigeant voire potentiellement dévalorisant et, acteur instinctif, de risquer de perdre son naturel éblouissant par la remise en question de ses qualités propres.

Il se trouve que le naturel l’intéresse très peu. Ses admirations, nombreuses et enthousiastes, le portent à étudier les autres acteurs. Comment construit-on un rôle ? Intellectuellement ou physiquement ? Les techniques variées, parfois théorisées, telle l’incontournable Méthode ou « La formation de l’acteur » de Stanislavski, parfois liées à un seul individu, sont passées systématiquement en revue, analysées, expérimentées. Face à ce savoir, Louis Garrel est d’un éclectisme gourmand, curieux, touche-à-tout, impatient – mais à mille lieues de la maîtrise. Son avidité le rend forcément critique vis-à-vis du système français, axé presque exclusivement sur le théâtre, négligeant, en matière de jeu, les spécificités du cinéma. Antithèse de l’enfant privilégié par sa naissance, Louis Garrel magnifie l’invention, la création, prêtant peu de foi à l’inné, passionné de l’acquis. Ceci transparaît assez peu dans sa filmographie. Car ce qu’il donne à voir – jusqu’à présent – c’est un jeune homme toujours pareil à lui-même, à deux doigts de la caricature. Certes, son visage et sa chevelure semblent difficiles à effacer. Ni « gueule » d’acteur ni bellâtre interchangeable, ses traits sont néanmoins trop marqués pour inviter aux masques. Par comparaison, le visage de Johnny Depp, acteur caméléon qu’il cite en exemple, est d’une neutralité telle que son potentiel mimétique est quasiment illimité. Après, il n’y a pas seulement le visage. La tenue de Louis Garrel se compose invariablement d’une chemise blanche sur un pantalon sombre. Son débit de parole, caractéristique lui aussi, se distingue par un marmonnement assez inintelligible dû à une tendance inexplicable à se fourrer les doigts en bouche. Persistance du stade oral, peut-être confirmée par l’exposition du corps, curieux mélange de sensualité juvénile et d’arlequinade asexuée : hautes jambes légèrement désarticulées, pas traînant, tête baissée, yeux lancés au ciel, attitude de nonchalance extrême brusquement rompue par quelque danse improvisée, totalement impromptue et touchante comme les célèbres chorégraphies de Charlot. Louis Garrel est reconnaissable. Impossible de savoir à quel point ce personnage-là est déjà construit, s’il se construit pour lui-même ou pour le cinéma, impossible de prévoir s’il peut également être déconstruit.

Aussi finit-il par avouer une certaine impuissance dans la composition de ses rôles. Jeune encore, il a le temps, et cette marge ajoutée à la volonté d’apprendre, relativise quelque peu son aliénation au réalisateur. « Je suis toujours le porte-parole du metteur en scène. Plus ou moins. Je fonctionne selon une identification un peu étrange avec lui. Je ne suis pas encore assez calé pour construire des personnages. Physiquement je n’arrive pas encore à me débloquer. » (Cahiers du Cinéma, été 2008). C’est dans cette immaturité, ce vide de jeu, que vient se glisser l’inné ; il resurgit dans l’abandon du corps à une époque révolue. Si le qualificatif « inactuel » revient si souvent à son propos, c’est que son cinéma n’est pas d’aujourd’hui et qu’il incarne une utopie. Il y a, bien évidemment, mai 68, brasier des films « Les innocents » de Bertolucci, et « Les amants réguliers » de Philippe Garrel. Mais l’anachronisme n’est pas forcément lié au contexte du film, puisque le cinéma de Christophe Honoré, qui est, avec son père, l’autre réalisateur de prédilection, s’ancre dans le présent. « La belle personne », transposition de « la princesse de Clèves » actualise l’intrigue mais presque pas les personnages. Quant à « Dans Paris » et « Les chansons d’amour »,  leur présent baigne dans une atmosphère proche de la Nouvelle Vague que Louis Garrel prolonge naturellement par une désinvolture poétique inspirée de Jean-Pierre Léaud. Son attitude embrasse gaiement les contraires :  légèreté mélancolique, gravité souriante, profondeur à fleur de peau – c’est la synthèse du clown triste. Enfin et surtout, il y a les films de son père, pour lequel Louis devient ce François en noir et blanc à l’aura sublimée par la photographie. Romantique dans ses faiblesses, il devient figure de style par ce décalage permanent qui le tient à l’écart de la fiction même qui le convoque. Un mélange insolite de présence et d’absence, un corps dépossédé qui culmine dans le suicide. Pour François, il n’est pas d’issue, ni dans la réalité ni, désormais, dans la fiction : l’utopie ne peut que s’anéantir. Pour Louis par contre, fort de cette place, hors du temps, qu’il occupe dans le cinéma, les possibles sont innombrables. Seulement c’est à lui de les inventer.

(Article publié dans la Sélec, Hors-Série FIFF, octobre 2009)

Précédemment sur Louis Garrel :

Les chansons d’amour

La belle personne

La frontière de l’aube

Choisir d’aimer

Films de Louis Garrel disponibles à la Médiathèque

Robert Ginty

Robert Ginty, star of action films such as “The Exterminator” who also wrote, produced and directed, died of cancer Monday September 21, in Los Angeles. He was 60.

The rugged thespian was mostly known for his tough guy roles in B-movies, but in addition to writing and directing TV shows and films, he directed experimental theater productions and dabbled in painting and photography.

Ginty’s first major role were in Hal Ashby’s “Coming Home” and as recurring character on series “Baa Baa, Black Sheep.” More recently, he became a theater director, directing productions such as a Toronto rap/hip hop version of “A Clockwork Orange.”

Robert Ginty in Baa Baa Black Sheep

Among his TV roles were playing Thomas Craig Anderson on “The Paper Chase,” and recurring roles on “Hawaiian Heat” and “Falcon Crest.”

After starring in “The Exterminator” in 1980, Ginty went on to star in a string of action movies such as “Gold Raiders,” “Cop Target,” “The Alchemist,” “Gold Raiders,” “The Scarab” and “Exterminator 2.” He wrote, directed and starred in “The Bounty Hunter” and then began directing for episodic television.

Ginty was nominated for a Cable Ace award on HBO series “Dream On” and directed shows including “China Beach,” “Evening Shade,” “Nash Bridges,” “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” “Charmed” and “Xena: Warrior Princess.”

In recent years, his career took a different direction as he worked in Canada, France, Ireland and Italy as a theater director and as an artist in residence at Harvard U.

Born in New York, he studied acting at the Actors Studio and Yale, and then begin acting in theater productions. Moving to Hollywood, Ginty began guest starring in tv shows and appeared in small roles in the films “Bound for Glory” and “Two Minute Warning.”

He is survived by his wife Michelle and son James Francis, an actor.

«No soy raro. Lo que sucede es que intento ser un actor, no una estrella de cine. No soy ni un joven rebelde ni un viejo rebelde, ni siquiera un rebelde cansado, sino simplemente un actor que trata de hacer su trabajo con el máximo de convicción y sinceridad.»
————————————————-—————————–Montgomery Clift

Mi primer recuerdo de Montgomery Clift va unido a la proyección del film Río Rojo, de Howard Hawks. Era una sala para cinéfilos ya desaparecida, por supuesto. Corría el año 1970 y una de mis inquietudes culturales era frecuentar cines de Arte y Ensayo recomendados por la revista «Turia» con sus calificaciones laudatorias. Río Rojo se proyectó junto a Hiroshima, mon amour, de Alain Resnais. Aunque era un gran admiradorde John Wayne, sin embargo me quedé impresionado por el trabajo de Montgomery Clift, que interpretaba en la película de Hawks al hijo de Wayne, un vaquero introvertido. Fue seguramente la profundidad psicológica del personaje, con su rostro atormentado,  lo que me atrajo de este inolvidable actor.

Curiosamente Río Rojo fue el primer film de los 17 en que intervino Clift. Había nacido 7 de octubre de 1920 en Oklahoma (Nebraska). Hasta participar en el film de Hawks (tenía 28 años) Montgomery Clift ya poseía un amplia carrera teatral en Broadway, rechazando las ofertas que le venían de Hollywood. Pronto dos hechos –que posteriorente marcaron toda su carrera– influyeron en el actor. Por una parte su trabajo con Elia Kazan (le dirige en la obra de Thornton Wilder «The Skin of Our Teeth»), que le inicia en método del Actor’s Studio (Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro y Al Pacino han confesado las influencias que recibieron de Clift). Y por otra parte una disentería que contrajo muy joven, cuyo tratamiento le puso en contacto con el mundo de los fármacos y las drogas.

A partir de la visión de Río Rojo mi interés por Montgomery Clift aumentó sustancialmente. Pero no era fácil acceder a alguna película más si no era a través de las reposiciones (éste era el caso del film de Hawks), sus pases por televisión o algún estreno tardío, como fue el caso de Freud, pasión secreta (Freud, the secret passion), 1962, de John Huston. Mi impresión fue enorme al ver el rostro desfigurado de Clift, que intervino en el film de Huston –bastante mutilado, por cierto– estando casi ciego, con una flebitis producida por el alcohol y las drogas, y después de varias operaciones de cirugía plástica para recomponer su cara dañada en un accidente automovilístico cinco años antes.

La otra gran película de Montgomery Clift fue Vidas rebeldes (The Misfits), 1961, también de John Huston. El médico le había diagnosticado una alarmante pérdida de memoria y de vista, con unas incipientes cataratas. Poco antes de comenzar el rodaje había sido internado en un hospital por una hepatitis aguda. Vidas rebeldes, además de ser un excelente film, es casi la crónica documental de tres seres a punto de desaparecer en la vida real. Clark Gable murió recién terminado el rodaje. Marilyn Monroe y Montgomery Clift lo harían pocos años después tras una vida marcada por la autodestrucción.

Junto a estos tres films, imposible olvidar La heredera (The Heiress), 1949, de William Wyler, a través de sucesivos pases televisivos, con un Clift que interpretaba a un cazador de dotes sin escrúpulos. Un lugar en el sol (A place in the Sun), 1951, de George Stevens, que supuso para el actor su lanzamiento de joven rebelde de la década de los años 50, como sucedió con Marlon Brando y James Dean, a la vez que con el film inició an amistad con Liz Taylor (aunque la productora propagó como reclamo publicitario la idea de un romance entre ellos, sin embargo su relación no pasó de tener un carácter materno-filial, dada la homosexualidad de Clift). Yo confieso (I Confess), 1953, de Alfred Hitchcock, donde interpretaba a un sacerdote católico que debe decidir entre desvelar un «secreto de confesión» o aceptar un crimen que no había cometido.

De aquí a la eternidad (From here to Eternity), 1953, de Fred Zinnemann, con un Clift de soldado individualista y rebelde, y con ocho Oscars que obtiene el film (Clift fue únicamente nominado). Estación Termini (Stazione Termini), 1954, de Vittorio de Sica, al que había conocido en un baile de disfraces al que le había invitado Luchino Visconti, film que supuso una incursión europea de Clift, aunque con producción independiente del norteamericano David Selznick, a partir de un guión del padre del neorrealismo italiano, Cesare Zavattini.

De repente el último verano (Suddenly, last summer), 1959, de Joseph L. Mankiewiz, repuesta hace años con todos los honores, film que aceptó interpretar por los ruegos de su amiga Liz Taylor, ya que se encontraba muy mal físicamente, abrumado por el alcohol y las anfetaminas. Vencedores o vencidos (Judgment at Nuremberg), 1961, de Stanley Kramer, con un corto papel que le valió ser nuevamente nominado para un Oscar, en el apartado de secundarios (hay que resaltar que Clift fue nominado en cuatro ocasiones al Oscar, no obteniéndolo nunca). Para finalizar su carrera con un flojo film, El desertor (L’espion), 1966, de Raoul Levy. Cuando iba a comenzar el rodaje con John Huston de Reflejos en un ojo dorado (Reflections on a golden eye), fue encontrado muerto por su secretario. La autopsia diagnosticó oclusión de la arteria coronaria. Clift tenía 45 años.

Mr. Arriflex

“The older I get, the more I see a straight path where I want to go. If you’re going to hunt elephants, don’t get off the trail for a rabbit.” … T. Boone Pickens

The Conversation

A significant portion of my current business life is involved in managing the art of conversation. I’m often talking with someone that a casual reader of the Wine Spectator or the Wine Enthusiast might consider a star in the world of wine. I don’t see this as interactions with celebrities du vin, but tend to view them as talks with friends, colleagues and/or possible business associates. These conversations often take the form of a verbal dance with the initiating party trying to elicit at no cost a magic bullet that will help their business, and I’m trying to extract what I call the ‘essential truths.’ One of my clients referred to this process as ‘dancing with the stars.’ The stars in this case are the workable ideas and probable solutions that are sometimes extracted in this dance process. It is likely that if these conversations were to be viewed by an uninterested third party, they would possibly be seen as some sort of Dos Passosian stream of consciousness dialog exercise at the Actors Studio. But, in fact, these oral exchanges of ideas are neither arcane nor obtuse but a defined process that has long been codified in the halls of serious business. Go back to those late night college ‘bull sessions,’ but add two decades of experience and an identifiable targeted outcome, and you’ll get the idea.

I’m not the contact at the top of most wineries CRM vendor contact lists. I’m the person that’s often called a little late to the party. Called to the party after the steam has gone out of the celebration, and the party is headed south. I’m not the expert, I’m listed after the expert. By the way, a wine business contact had a great comment in regards to ‘experts:’ “If someone tells you that they’re an expert, run the other way.” I’m the person who has gone through several business cycles. The ups, downs and the exigencies inherent in our complex and brand saturated corner of the greater CPG universe. My current conversations seem to reflect these difficult times. Often it’s about a decline in general revenues or net contribution, that’s most often attributable to increased discounting and or promotional expenditures necessitated by a soft market or aggressive competition. But becoming more common are conversations relating to a specific line item. And this is usually about a line item that was previously in balance with market demand, but production was dramatically increased on an aspirational or preferential whim. In the recent, but now past, halcyon days of conspicuous consumption, this ersatz strategy often worked, but those days are now a vague memory. This all too common wine business story never conformed to Consumer Packaged Goods marketing best practices, and has resulted to a lake of unconsumed wines. What? You hadn’t noticed. Well, vintages are starting to back-up, and your winery’s SIP (sales, inventory, production) report is starting to read like the fiction of Bernie Madoff’s trade confirmations. And, well like it or not, this is the lake in which we all now all find ourselves. There are obvious steps that can be taken, such as the movement of unbottled wine to bulk sales, consideration of significantly reduced FOB sales to developing markets such as China, a reduction in the amount of wine produced in the near term, lowering domestic FOB prices and increasing promotional spend, diversifying distribution channels or calling Paul Mabray at VinTank for help in focusing on effective DTC initiatives. But, the real challenge in this broad marketplace, one not only figuratively but literally flooded with wine choices, is how to create and maintain a viable wine brand given the realities of today’s economy or the new outlook for a reshaped business world. Sound business decisions are based on good market intelligence and not on whim. The attributes of passion and vision can be the fuel to start a business, but a sound, flexible business plan is the basis for ongoing viability.

A Brief Wine Marketing Focus Case Study

Most large wineries have highly diversified product portfolios, but a few of the largest built a foundation over time by focusing on a specific niche or even a single varietal. In 1982 San Francisco based land use attorney and part time Lake County grape grower Jess Jackson found that his long time Chardonnay buyer Fetzer Vineyards had no need for his grapes. The US economy had been in decline since the 1979 energy crisis, and a significant drop in real estate values driven by a banking crisis in the saving & loan sector hit home in this time frame. Interest rates topped out at 22% driving down the value of the dollar and making imports cheeper than ever. On top of that the 1982 California wine grape crop came in at record levels, creating an instant oversupply. Jess had no home for his grapes. Lake County based winemaker Jed Steele was contracted to make 2,000 cases of Chardonnay, but there were problems and the fermentation was stuck at .5% RS. Jess liked the wine and decided to sell it. The Chardonnay market was small at the time. Most consumers had little experience with California Chardonnay, but Jess felt that he could sell the 2,000 cases and recoup his cost. He came up with the name Chateau du Lac, but found little interest with his presell efforts, Wine Marketer Dennis Canning was brought on board and decided to use the last names of Jess and his then wife, ergo Kendall-Jackson. In a stroke of marketing kismet the modifier ‘Vintner’s Reserve’, was added to the label. Dennis & Jess took the now labeled Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay to the market, store by store, restaurant by restaurant and quickly sold the 2,000 cases. Jess was now in the wine business selling Chardonnay. By 1987 the winery was selling 57,000 cases of Chardonnay  and Kendall Jackson was named the Wine & Spirits magazine Winery of the Year. By 1992 Kendall Jackson now one of Americas largest and most successful wine companies, sold more than one million cases of Chardonnay. The focus from the beginning was Chardonnay, and it remains the core of the current K-J driving acquisitions, growth, capital improvements line and brand expansions that were made possible by this laser-like focus on Chardonnay. This is a story that was preceded in time by Trinchero Family Estates basing it’s success on White Zinfandel, and Ridge, Ravenswood and Rosenblum’s focus on Zinfandel. Silver Oak set the mark with a focus on Cabernet Sauvignon, Dehlinger with Pinot Noir, Zaca Mesa with Syrah, ad infinitum. Focus works.

Order out of Chaos

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” … Bill Cosby

Based on a significant number of wine business conversations over the last three months, permit me to suggest some topics for you to consider for your next management meeting. Some very difficult decisions likely have to be made by you and your team, now. These are decisions that will perhaps determine the long term viability of you wine business. It’s not the time to waffle. If you have to take a financial hit, take it now, and then stop the bleeding. First, a plan to move excess inventory should be developed and enacted. The wine business is now primarily a push market. The pull market that may have previously driven your brand no longer exists. General discount strategies employed by major regional and national retailers have put a semi-permanent kink in the idea of wine pricing elasticity, and removed the wine consumer’s sense of urgency in purchasing your brand now that every wine is on discount. Rethink your entire strategy. Rethink your varietal line-up. Understand the uniqueness of each channel. And don’t harbor the expectation that the broad market will absorb product from your softening DTC sales. And, look at what you do best. If you make really good Pinot Noir do you really need to make that Syrah? Build your brand strategy around a point of focus. Spend time in maximizing your brand reputation and sales around this varietal, and if you have the drive maybe, just maybe, you can be a financially successful wine business.

Note: Copyright © 2009 Think Wine Marketing® All rights reserved.

Constantin Siergueieivitch Alexeiev , em russo Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, (Moscou, 5 de Janeiro de 1863 — Moscou, 7 de Agosto de 1938), mais conhecido por Constantin Stanislavski, foi um ator, diretor, pedagogo e escritor russo de grande destaque entre os séculos XIX e XX .

Desde pequeno Stanislavski tinha contato com todos os tipos de artes, pois nascera em família rica, sua primeira apresentação ocorreu quando ainda tinha sete anos em um teatro que seu pai mandara construir em sua casa. Neste local, também conhecido como Círculo Alexeiev, aconteciam vários encontros com atores, diretores, músicos, artistas plásticos entre outros conhecidos em Moscou e em demais localidades. Após os casamentos na família, esses encontros começaram a ficar mais raros.

Em 1888, Stanislavski fundou a Sociedade Literária de Moscou, no qual passa a estudar a arte teatral com grandes personalidade da época, como o diretor Fiédotov. Este empreendimento não teve muito sucesso, principalmente no aspecto financeiro que levou Stanislavski a arcar sozinho com as despesas.

Após trocar correspondências com Vladímir Ivânovitch Niemiróvitch-Dântchenco (1858 – 1943), escritor e professor de arte dramática na Filarmônica de Moscou; iniciou no dia 22 de junho de 1897, às 14h; no Slaviánski Bazar (Mercado Eslavo, nome de um restaurante), não só um conversa histórica, mas um diálogo, de um empreendimento, que marcaria o teatro no século XX: o Teatro de Arte (ou Artístico) de Moscou Acessível a Todos, que depois passaria a ser conhecido como o Teatro de Arte de Moscou.

Foi neste local que Stanislavski, durantes anos, teve a oportunidade de testar métodos e técnicas no trabalho de preparação do ator. Muito desses foram deixados de lados e outros aprofundados. Estes seus estudos geraram o conhecido Sistema Stanislavski.

O Sistema Stanislavski

Para Stanislavski, Maria Yermolova representava o ápice da arte de representar

Quando começou a atuar, Stanislavski estava às voltas com duas formas distintas de representação, que marcaram a evolução desta arte no século XIX: o teatro tradicional (bastante estilizado, onde o ator exibia gestos nada realistas) e a técnica recém-surgida de representação realista.

O diretor observou, então, os grandes atores de seu tempo, além de contar com as próprias experiências. Constatou que aqueles intérpretes agiam de forma natural e intuitiva – mas que nada havia capaz de traduzir suas atuações em palavras, que fosse capaz de perpetuar aquele conhecimento. Resolveu, portanto, criar um sistema que, com o seu nome, passou às gerações futuras e ainda hoje serve de base para a formação de todo bom ator.

O núcleo deste sistema está na chamada “atuação verossímil”, uma série de técnicas e princípios que hoje são considerados fundamentais para o desempenho do ator.

Ao contrário da percepção de naturalidade que observara, descobriu que a atuação realista era, em verdade, muito artificial e difícil – e que somente seria adquirido mediante uma série de estudos e práticas, que compilou.

Ele disse:

Todos os nossos atos, mesmo os mais simples, aqueles que estamos acostumados em nosso cotidiano, são desligados quando surgimos na ribalta, diante de uma platéia de mil pessoas. Isso é por que é necessário se corrigir e aprender novamente a andar, sentar, ou deitar. É necessário a auto-reeducação para, no palco, olhar e ver, escutar e ouvir.

Influência e desenvolvimento do “Sistema”

Stanislavski também influiu na ópera moderna, e impulsionou os trabalhos de escritores como Máximo Gorki e Anton Tchecov. Em 1905 funda o Teatro Estúdio (Moscou), que será dirigido por Meyerhold (Meyerhold, Alberto Editor, pg 119).

Seu sistema, também chamado de Método da Ação Física, teve diversos seguidores, nas várias fases em que foi desenvolvido. Um de seus alunos (Richard Boleslavski), fundou em 1925 o “Laboratório de Teatro”, nos Estados Unidos. Esta iniciativa, baseada apenas na chamada “memória emotiva”, causou grande impacto no teatro americano, mas a técnica de Stanislavski evoluiu ainda mais.

Stella Adler foi a única norte-americana que estudou com Stanislavsky, seguindo o Método de Ações Físicas (em Paris, durante 5 semanas no ano de 1934). Adler apresentou o novo método a outro teórico da representação, Lee Strasberg, que o rejeitou – motivo pelo qual Adler declarou que ele “entendeu tudo errado”…

De 1934, ano em que Adler estudou com ele, até sua morte em 1938, Stanislavski continuou no desenvolvimento de seu sistema, acrescentando novas idéias e reforçando as já desenvolvidas.

Legado e atores

Desde o Actors Studio, em Nova Iorque, a muitos outros mundo afora, as técnicas de Stanislavski seguem preparando grandes atores.

Um bom exemplo, popularizados nas telas cinematográficas, temos em: Jack Nicholson, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Geraldine Page, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Jane Fonda e muitos mais. Mais recentemente temos Benicio Del Toro, Mark Ruffalo, Johnny Depp e Sean Penn.

Charlie Chaplin disse, sobre Stanislavsky:

O livro de Stanislavski, “A preparação do ator”, pode ajudar todas as pessoas, mesmo longe da arte dramática.”

Stanislavski lutou por facilitar o trabalho do ator. Mas, acima de tudo, declarou:

“Crie seu próprio método. Não seja dependente, um escravo. Faça somente algo que você possa construir. Mas observe a tradição da ruptura, eu imploro.”

Bibliografia

• STANISLAVSKI, Constantin. Minha Vida na Arte. Tradução de Paulo Bezerra. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.
• ______.A Preparação do Ator. Tradução: Pontes de Paula Lima. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.
• ______. A Construção da Personagem. Tradução: Pontes de Paula Lima. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.
• ______. A Criação de um Papel. Tradução: Pontes de Paula Lima. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.

As publicações abaixo foram feitas diretamente do Russo e diferem da tradução ao português.

• STANISLAVSKI, Constantin. Mi Vida en el Arte. Tradução de Salomón Merecer. Buenos Aires: Quetzal.
• ______. El Trabajo del Actor Sobre Sí Mismo en el proceso Creador de las Vivencias. Tradução de Salomón Merecer. Buenos Aires: Quetzal.
• ______. El Trabajo del Actor Sobre Sí mismo en el Proceso Creador de la Encarnación. Tradução de Salomón Merecer. Buenos Aires: Quetzal.
• ______. El Trabajo del Actor Sobre su Papel. Tradução de Salomón Merecer. Buenos Aires: Quetzal.
• ______. Correspondencia. Tradução de Salomón Merecer Buenos Aires: Quetzal.

Livros sobre Stanislavski

• ASLAN, Odete. O Ator no Século XX. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2006.
• BONFITTO, Matteo. O Ator Compositor. São Paulo: Perspectiva.
• GUINSBURG, Jacó. Stanislavski, Meierhold e Cia. São Paulo: Perspectiva.
• ______. Stanislavski e o Teatro de Arte de Moscou. São Paulo: Perspectiva.
• MAUCH, M. e Camargo, R. A Edição de a Construção da Personagem em português e espanhol.
• RIPELLINO, Angelo Maria. O Truque e a Alma. Tradução de Roberta Barni. São Paulo: Perspectiva.
• RIZZO, Eraldo Pera. Ator e Estranhamento: Brecht e Stanislavski, Segundo Kusnet. São Paulo: Senac, 2001.
• TAKEDA, Cristiane Layher. O Cotidiano de uma Lenda. São Paulo: Perspectiva.

Fonte: Wikipedia

Vi piacerebbe provare le emozioni di una star dello spettacolo che cammina sul red carpet? Beh, avete due alternative. La prima: iscrivervi all’Actor’s Studio (e incrociare le dita…). Se invece nutrite dubbi sul vostro talento, allora è meglio se prendete un aereo per Seoul e se fate un salto in metropolitana. Alla fermata di Sindorim troverete The Sensory Light Box di Nikon. Si tratta di un billboard che promuove le meraviglie della nuova D700. In pratica, grazie a un sensore, ogni volta che qualcuno passa lì davanti (si stima che la stazione sia frequentata da ben 500.000 persone al giorno), scatta un flash, a simulare l’attacco a colpi di macchina fotografica di un paparazzo.
La campagna è stata recentemente premiata ai Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

The Apprentice

Inside the Actors Studio is a series on the Bravo cable television channel, hosted by James Lipton. While most of the show is a one-on-one interview conducted by Lipton, this is followed by the host submitting a questionnaire to the guest. The questionnaire concept was originated by French television personality Bernard Pivot, after the Proust Questionnaire.
I got this from my lovely friend Kelly via FB but felt like doing it on the blog… You know the drill, fill it in, post it, tag your friends…someday they could be famous and actually on BRAVO taking the quiz inside the Actor’s Studio. Or not….

1) What turns you on?
Smart and Funny. I’d pick average looking dude with wicked smarts and sense of humour over washboard stomach boy any day of the week. However, if washboard stomach boy is also super funny and smart… well…

2) What turns you off?
Extreme arrogance. Cruelty. Rudeness. Violence.

3) What is your favorite word?
Laugh. I collect signs that say laugh.. so does my BFF Jodi. We are getting tattoos of the word on our wrists as a constant reminder. Sometimes it’s all you can do in order to not go crazy.

4) What is your least favorite word?
Stupid. My children were not allowed to say it growing up. Idiot. Anything that makes others feel bad.
as an aside… I have two friends who hate the word “panties”. And another friend who will retch if you say the word “caterpillar”. Not kidding. I haven’t any such strong feelings about any words.

5) What sound or noise do you love?
Sound of my own voice, obviously…. kidding. My children’s voices. The bass in a song. Laughter.

6) What sound or noise do you hate?
The sound of screeching brakes and shattering glass. I’ve been in too many accidents.

7) What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
Games show host. Writer. Millionaire.

What profession other than yours would you not want to attempt?
Politician . Accountant. Anything that involves sweating or cleaning up bodily fluids.

9) What is your favorite swear word?
F _ _ K . Specifically.. “F_ _KIN’ F_ _KERS”.

10) If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say to you as you enter the Pearly Gates?
Well, it was touch and go there for a while.. but.. you pulled it off.. best part is, Satan now owes me $50….

Life: No news
Love: The only boys who seem to like me live far away. LOL. I need to move or something..
Pants: Lost 4 pounds this week. However, that was after gaining a couple.. so doing OK.

Senti ‘mpo’, Tom. Senti a me….va bene mission impossibòll, no? Però a voi attori che vi trovate ad interpretare certe scene no..ma vi danno l’indennizzo previsto, che prevede 6 mesi di actor’s studio aggratis accompagnati dal terapista, quando gli sceneggiatori e il regista decidono di piazzarvi su suolo straniero e decidono pure di pennellare lo schermo con gli stereotipi di codesta terra non U.S.A. in cui il vostro personaggio si trova a muoversi? (punto e ripigliare fiato)

Ovvero: ieri sera, filmetto sopra citato. Tra una forchettata e l’altra di insalata di riso, ecco palesarsi la scena in cui il prode Tom, alias agente supersegretissimo, decide di recarsi nientepopodimeno che in Vaticano. Luogo notoriamente aperto a tutti e per niente sorvegliato. Ma qui si tratta di una missione impossibile, lo dice pure il titolo, mica stamo dar pizzicarolo.

L’esilarante scena si apre con lui+collega che, vestiti da corrieri, fingono che gli si fermi er camioncino. Ovviamente lungo le mura vaticane, in un posto che già di suo, per chi non è di Roma, è un budello ed è un casino. In più spesso, per motivi imperscrutabili, ci sono sovente dei lavori in corso. Vabbè. Ma andiamo avanti. La simpatica coppia scende dal camioncino inscenando un’italica querelle nella quale gesticolano agitando i braccini come pale di ventilatore. Nel mentre, un lui+unalei scendono e si mettono a parlare una cosa che sembrava il dialetto romano imitato da Massimo Boldi e incitano i due a “dasse ‘na mossa”….Fumi finti dal cofano, armeggiamenti, Cruise che si defila tipo omo-ragno in su pe’ er muro vaticano e il collega agentesupersegreto pure lui, che sorride alla coppia capitolina che attendeva di poter passare e che, nella migliore tradizione Italiani, pizza mandulino, ridono sempre e cantano e so’ tutti amici, risolvono il tutto a cuor leggero e sfoderando sorrisoni e “ciao cumpa’, buona giornata”.

UAHUAHAUAHAHAHAAA!!! Che? De che? MA DOVEEEE??? Fate pure la prova, se avete coraggio, fatela, forza! Provate a fermarvi all’ora di punta in una qualsiasi strada romana ostruendo il passaggio e poi altro che ‘ciao cumpa’. Come minimo arrivano 3 energumeni, Evaristo, Lello e Spartaco e ve pijano de peso e ve mettono nel cassonetto.

Ma andiamo ancora avanti alla fantascienza fatta film o fatta licenza poetica, se vogliamo.

Arriva il momento dell’infiltrazione der socio de Tom dentro al Vaticano. Chiaramente Tom ha sincronizzato gli orologi ed è riuscito a cambiare quattro travestimenti in 6 nanosecondi, passando anche per una gustosa versione di Don Abbondio col breviario. Il patto tra i due è “troviamoci tra 5 minuti e 15 secondi nel punto ics”…e qui arriva la cosa gran-dio-sa.

Il socio sta dentro i musei vaticani ed è entrato SUBITO! Senza incontrare NESSUNO!!!

UAHUAHAUAHAHAHAHHAA!!!!!!

Bene. Tanto per dare un’idea…se avete deciso di venire a Roma per visitare i suddetti musei,  potete sedervi comodamente sulla vostra poltrona, a Forlì. La fila, comincia da lì.

“My first real big influence was…Bugs Bunny.”

- Dave Chapelle

Yo me muero por Gena Rowlands, decía Fito Paez. Me sumo a las palabras, no queda otra. Estaba revisando unos videos en Youtube y apareció este pedacito de actuación. Tremendo. El master Cassavetes saca lo mejor de Rowlands y de  Peter Falk (antaño conocido como Columbo). Para quienes no la han visto, Gena (-¿te puedo tutear?) es  Mabel Longhetti, una esposa que se ve superada por la locura. Su marido,  Nick Longhetti debe tomar la decisión de internarla. El momento ocurre frente a la madre de Nick y el doctor de la familia.

Jodie Foster pratade skådespeleri i Actors Studio. Jag är inte så galet förtjust i vare sig henne eller programformatet. Men, mina fördomar kom på skam. Jodie var kvick och underhållande och hon tog för sig så att den träige James Lipton inte lyckades förstöra allt för mycket av situationen.

Bland annat visade det sig att Jodie Foster gått i fransk skola – varför utreddes dock inte. Hon sa att hon får en annan röst när hon pratar franska (som exempelvis i filmen Moi, fleur bleue) och att hon också tangerar andra delar av sin personlighet en francais.

Och jag vet nog vad hon pratar om. Min röst rasar flera trappsteg på finska och samtidigt inträffar en subtil men påtaglig personlighetsförändring. Jag blir till ett eko av de finska kvinnorna i familjen: det finns personer som inte kan skilja mig från min arton år äldre syster i telefon.

Så, det är inte utan att man blir nyfiken på  vem Jodie  Foster är på franska. Någon som är mer sårbar i alla fall, enligt henne själv.

Even among movie buffs, Collin Wilcox is not as well known as she should be.  Maybe it’s because of her gender-neutral name (taken from a Canadian uncle; her parents were confident of a boy), or because from the very beginning of her career she disappeared into her characters with a lack of vanity rare for a young actress.

Collin had one famous film role, as Mayella Ewell, the redneck teenager who falsely accuses a black man of rape, in To Kill a Mockingbird; her stormy witness-stand breakdown provides the movie with its startling, sad climactic twist.  But her movie resume includes juicy roles that you’ve probably forgotten, even if you remember the films: two for her friend James Bridges (The Baby Maker and September 30, 1977, both criminally unavailable on DVD); one for Mike Nichols (lost amid the chaos as one of the nurses in Catch-22); the late sixties cult items The Name of the Game Is Kill and The Revolutionary; and finally on the losing side of science as the marine biologist in Jaws 2.  (“Sharks don’t take things personally, Mr. Brody.”)

Before she ever made a feature, though, Collin was a busy television actress, one of the pool of A-list guest stars who made the rounds of the major TV dramas.  Already a success on Broadway, she made her first splash on TV in a live adaptation (directed by Robert Mulligan, who would remember her for Mockingbird) of Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding.  Collin played Frankie, the twelve year-old southern tomboy, a role originated by Julie Harris in the stage and film versions of the novel.

Over the next two decades Collin appeared on The Defenders (three times), Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, Judd For the Defense, The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, and dozens more.  But she may be best known for a pair of genre classics that both aired in early 1964.  The first was one The Twilight Zone’s ironic rants against conformity, “Number 12 Looks Like You,” which presciently envisioned a society where mandatory plastic surgery resculpts everyone to match a generic ideal of beauty.  (In case you haven’t been watching reality TV or the CW lately, we more or less have that now.)  “Number 12″ put Collin in the unflattering role of the plain girl surrounded by beautiful people (Suzy Parker, Pam Austin, Richard Long), although her own offbeat good looks offered a rebuke to the plasticized prettiness of the others; as one TV fan said to me, “What was wrong with her?  I liked her better the way she was!”

Three weeks after “Number 12,” Collin appeared as Pat Buttram’s jailbait, backwoods bride in “The Jar,” an Alfred Hitchcock Hour adaptation of Ray Bradbury so spooky that it still turns up regularly on TV aficionados’ lists of all-time favorite episodes (including mine).  Collin has a ball, drawing on all the tools she set aside for “Number 12″’s Marilyn Cuberle, bopping around in skimpy outfits and suppressing every sign of her own sharp intellect.  The result is a frank sensuality that could only slip into sixties TV via performance; had it been scripted, it would have been censored.

Last year, Collin shared some remarkable stories surrounding her work in “The Benefactor,” a milestone Defenders episode about abortion.  Since then we’d remained in touch, and Collin has become one of my favorite people – not just for her courage in discussing a painful incident from her past, but also because she uses words like “peachy” and hails from my own home state of North Carolina (where she now lives). 

When I decided to inaugurate a series of interviews with some of my favorite classic television actors for this blog, Collin was an obvious choice.  We spoke at length about the early years of her career last fall, after a delay necessitated by the presidential election: Collin had turned over her theater space to the local Obama campaign.  Only after spending some time celebrating the fact that (for the first time in my lifetime) North Carolina’s electoral votes had gone to a Democratic candidate did we turn our attention to Collin’s life and to some of her many television roles.

Tell me about your television debut. 

Brenner was the first thing that I ever did.  I was told to go in, and there was a doorman, of course, and he pointed upstairs, to a big, winding staircase.  So I bopped into the room that I was told was my dressing room, and I had my little box of stage makeup with me.  I started applying my makeup, and I heard a huge commotion several floors down, and there was the producer and the director and the AD and a whole bunch of people.  I heard my name several times and I went, “Hey, I’m up here!” 

They thought I was late.  They were really furious, and the makeup artist came to my rescue.  She said, “If you don’t stop yelling at her, she won’t stop crying, and I’ll never get this makeup off and the other makeup on.”  So they did.  They didn’t know that I didn’t know that I wasn’t going to put on my own makeup.  They’d asked for an experienced ingenue.  There’s no such thing as an experienced ingenue!

Marty Balsam was playing my father, and we had the scene [with] the two of us on a settee.  They said, “Okay, Marty’s closeup next.”  They gave me a little box to sit on.  They started to shoot, and I went, oh, gosh, I’ve got to get in there, so I just jumped into his one-shot, on the sofa next to him.  I thought they’d made a mistake!

Was that the first time you’d ever been in front of a motion picture camera?

Yes, it had to have been, because those two scenes are so engraved in my memory.  It was so traumatic.

As mobster’s daughter Elizabeth Joplin on Brenner (“Family Man,” 1959)

Was The Member of the Wedding a breakthrough for you?

Well, it was huge for me, because of course I’d read Carson McCullers and absolutely adored her.  It’s any ingenue’s dream part, and I just loved everything about it.  And like every other young actress in New York, I was going to have that part. 

I cut my hair really, really, really short – this was just for the first audition – and I got those long dish towels and I had my husband bind my breasts, which wasn’t very much to do, but at least then I was totally flat-chested.  Then the night before, I took iodine and I made freckles across my nose in different places, knowing it would fade the next morning and really look like freckles.  Oh, and I went to the audition barefooted.  I did the whole bit. 

Robert Mulligan quite liked me, and he had me come back, and then I came back for the third time.  And Claudia McNeil did not take to me.  I don’t think she took to many people, but she certainly didn’t take to me.  I thought, “I’m going to lose this – no, no, I’m not going to lose it!”  She was in the room too, with Robert and maybe with someone else.  I was doing the “we of me” speech, and I leapt up on Robert’s desk and did it up there, and then I leapt into Claudia’s lap and hugged and kissed her.  I got the part.

Was The Member of the Wedding your first live TV role?

I think there was one before that, and I’m damned if I know what it was called ["Barefoot Soldier," for Kraft Theater].  Sal Mineo was the male lead.  He was a union soldier, and I was the southern girl.  It was live, a three camera thing. 

I remember another faux pas I made.  We had a scene – it was a love interest thing, kind of cute – and we had a scene where we were supposed to be sitting around the pond.  It a big huge tub with plastic and water in it, and all landscaped around.  I was barefoot in a dress hiked up probably much higher than it should have been hiked up, and swishing my feet around in the water, and my toes caught on something.  I’m a country girl, so it was natural for me to feel things with my toes, and I started to worry with it.  I mean, just play with it and go on with the scene.  And behind camera, I felt this frantic movement around me.  I looked down and the water was going down at a huge rate.  I’d pulled the plug out!

That was the same fall, ‘57, as when I had got married, which was a terrible mistake, and lived in New York, which wasn’t a terrible mistake.

The late fall of 1957.  I started going on auditions, and in December I got a role in The Day the Money Stopped.  Harold Clurman was the director, and Brendan Gill had adapted from it Maxwell Anderson’s book.  Richard Basehart was in it, and Kevin McCarthy, and Mildred Natwick.  That was a great experience.

It was kind of like its title: The Day the Money Stopped.  It was in and it was out.  But that year George C. Scott and I won the male and female award – Clarence Derwent, I think it was called – as the best supporting actress and actor on or off Broadway.

Prior to that you had performed in Chicago, right?

Yeah, I went to school at the Goodwin Memorial School of Drama there, and then I went back to Chicago to become a member of Compass, the first improvisational group in this country, maybe anywhere, with Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Shelley Berman, the late Severn Darden, Barbara Harris.  Then I played the ingenue in Arthur Miller’s two-act version of A View From the Bridge, that starred Luther Adler.

The marriage that you mentioned, was that to  Geoffrey Horne?

No, I’m talking about the first one, Walter Beakel, who is deceased.  He was a director.  I met him in summer stock in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.  One of those things where you do about fourteen plays in one summer.  He was down from New York.  After that summer was over, he replaced a director at Compass, and Barbara Harris was going to leave in a few months, so he brought me in as Barbara’s replacement.  Then it folded, and people went their separate ways.

After the summer stock tour of A View From the Bridge on the straw hat circuit, I rushed home to do The Fourposter with my groom to be, and then went to New York. 

Walter and I were getting married here in Highlands, and we were also in rehearsal for the two-character play The Fourposter, that Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy did on Broadway to great success.  We were doing it in my parents’ little theater here, the community theater where I started.  A reheasal was called, and I got to the theater and the theater doors were locked and there was no one there and I was sitting there fuming and calling everybody totally unprofessional, and my mother drove up and said, “Collin,  rehearsal’s at the church, dear.” 

I had one thing on my mind – that play.  The only reason I married Walter was he said if I didn’t marry him, he’d leave and we wouldn’t do the play.  That’s why I married him!  I was very mature.  We were a couple of weeks away from opening, and he’d been pressing me to marry him, and I said, “Walter, I really respect you, you’re a terrific director and a really good teacher, but I don’t want to marry you.  I’m not in love with you.”  He said, “That’s okay.  Doesn’t matter.”  He’d made up his mind he was going to marry me.

Another of your early roles in New York was on Play of the Week, in “The Velvet Glove” with Helen Hayes.

Do you remember a character actor named Larry Gates?  He was in it also.  Larry Gates had worked down at my parents’ theater in the forties, and so I knew him from being very small.  I knew him, and here we are in New York and we’re both in the same TV show with the magnificent Helen Hayes, who had the oddest habit of looking at your forehead when she talked to you.  It was because she was so short she was afraid her eyes wouldn’t be seen.  It was a little disconcerting but one got around it. 

What I remember most from that shoot is that Miss Hayes said something that absolutely tickled Larry so much that he peed in his pants, and he had to take his trenchcoat and tie it around himself and wear it that way for the rest of rehearsals.  Isn’t it weird the things you can remember?  I don’t remember anything else about that, except that I played some really kind of boring little scullery part.  I did it because Miss Helen Hayes was in it.

Even that early in your career, were you choosy about the parts you took?

Yep.  I was never interested in being a star.

You were a serious actress, instead?

Well, see, I was of the theatah, dear, and one took one’s acting very seriously.  You know, you’d think you were a rocket scientist or something.  Particularly back then, doing the work was very, very important, and of course that just got intensified when I became a member of the Actors Studio.

How did you get into the Actors Studio?

Walter was old friends with Geraldine Page, and she became sort of a mentor.  I guess she came with Walter to The Day the Money Stopped.  She said that I absolutely had to audition for the Actors Studio, and she was sure that I would get in.  And I wanted to study with someone, and why not the great Lee Strasberg?  Three auditions, and you’re in or not.  For life.

What did you learn from Strasberg?

He gave me the voice of my own intuition.  He taught you how to be emotionally available to yourself, if you were willing.  I already had the technique.  I’d been on stage for a long time.  It just deepened what I already have, which is basically being an intuitive actor.

Let me ask about some of your better known TV appearances from early on.  One was The Twilight Zone.

Oh, The Twilight Zone.  My own father was very much like what you hear about her father – the way Marilyn talks about her father.  One of his lines, that she quotes, was, “When everyone’s beautiful, no one will be beautiful.”  My father was an educated, compassionate man, and I thought about that when I was doing that role.  You know, I was totally on the side of Marilyn – thinking, this is awful, this could lead to 1984, with a stretch of the imagination.

What do you remember about the rest of the cast and crew of “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”?

Suzy Parker was such a great beauty.  I was just enamored of that kind of beauty, and she gave me all kinds of beauty tricks.  I mean, she was a model.  She said, “Now, keep a little pot of rouge by your bedside, and your brush, and just put some on your cheeks before your husband wakes up.”

The director was Abner Biberman.  Between playing the role and being chased around on the set by that man – and I had on some skimpy clothes, particularly that hospital thing.  Fortunately he was really heavy, and I could get into small places that he couldn’t!

Biberman was really that obvious about trying to grab you?

Oh, yes.  He had directed me to a play previous to casting me in this.  Oh, god, it is an awful play, called The Family Way.  Jack Kelly was my co-star.  That’s where Biberman knew anything about me, really.  I thought I was working with a man who was frothing at the mouth all the time – he had quite a temper – but he chewed Tums or something, so this frothy white stuff came out of the sides of his mouth when he was talking.

When you were a young actress, did men often chase you around sets like that?

Yes.  And there was no such [term] then as sexual harrassment, and you didn’t talk to anyone about it.  Because you probably felt, well, it’s my fault.  I must be flirting.  I don’t feel like I’m flirting, I don’t want to be flirting, I just want to act!  It was . . . annoying, to say the least. 

I will not name this actor, but he was a really big star.  After Twilight Zone, I flew to Italy to join my fiance, Geoffrey Horne, who was shooting a film in Rome.  Then on the flight coming back, the stewardess, as we called them then, came up and said, “So-and-so would like you to come and join him in first class.”  I said, “Okay!” and flounced up there and sat down next to him.  I had on an angora, like a really nice little fuzzy sweater, and he reached over and cupped my breast and he said, “You don’t mind my doing this, do you?”  And I said, “I really do.”  He said, “Well, I respect you for that,” and went on cupping my breast.  And he was on the aisle seat!  It was like that then.

How did you get out of that?

I said, “I’ve got to go tinkle.”  It really embarrassed me.  Of course I never came back, and of course he wasn’t going to chase me all the way down there to second class.

As pushy reporter Lisa Rand on Run For Your Life (“The Treasure Seekers,” 1966)

The way you described yourself in relation to Suzy Parker highlights an interesting aspect of your career, in that even though you were attractive, you often found yourself playing characters like Marilyn Cuberle: the plain, girl-next-door type.

I know it.

How did you feel about that at the time?

Well, somehow I knew, from a very young age, that I was a character actress, and that I was just going to have to go through this ingenue stuff until I got to some juicy character parts.  Yeah, there were times when I thought, this is ridiculous.  But usually, you see, the parts were better than the bip-boppity-boo little cute sexy ones. 

Also, I had a very flexible face.  Whatever the character was, I could look that way.  I wasn’t really interested in how the character looked.  I was interested in the character.

You did play a pretty unforgettable sexpot, albeit a sort of stereotypical backwoods one, in the famous Alfred Hitchcock Hour “The Jar.”

That was a wonderful, wonderful shoot.  Norman Lloyd put together this incredible cast.  I mean, it was just a wonderful cast of people, and the script was wonderful and just so Ray Bradbury.  Hitchcock was crazy about it.  

It was [Norman's] pet project, it really was, and we were all very excited because we had a ten-day shoot, which was such a luxury.  Norman kept such a wonderful excitement on the set.  I just loved everybody, and we all loved the piece that we were doing.  Pat Buttram!  Waiting for setups I got to sit and listen to Gene Autry stories.  Now where else would I ever have heard Gene Autry stories?

Jim Bridges [who adapted Bradbury's story] and I became really close friends.  I was in a couple of movies that he did, and a play that he wrote, and that’s where we met, on the set of “The Jar.”  He was there most of the shooting time. 

Your second Hitchcock Hour was a strange, modern-dress version of “The Monkey’s Paw.”

Oh, I hated that.  I think I didn’t like my part, and I certainly didn’t like my costumes.  And I was terrible!  We came across it quite a few years ago, and my husband, who didn’t know anything about theater when we were married almost thirty years ago, but I said, “You have to go into theater, darling, because otherwise you’ll bore me and then I’ll leave you, and I’d much rather stay with you.”  He went into theater; he’s a brilliant improvisationalist and now is a great film buff, and has an eye.  So we’re watching this, and he turned around and said, “Collin, you are awful in this.  What were you doing?”  I said, “I know.  It’s just terrible!”

You were on Dr. Kildare twice, both times playing unfit mothers.

Oh, and one of those unfit mothers [in "Sister Mike"], Mary Badham played my daughter.  Her parents really didn’t want her to go on with acting.  They wanted her to have a normal little life.  But this role came up and because we’d been in To Kill a Mockingbird together – we didn’t have any scenes together [in Mockingbird], but we saw each other on the set, and I had a nice relationship with the children. 

There was a scene that I remember, on the bed.  I think I was a prostitute; anyway, I was a derelict mother, that’s for sure.  She was watching me put on makeup.  You know that old cake mascara?  You had a little cardboard box, and a strip of cake mascara and there was a little brush in the box, and you spit on the mascara and rubbed the brush and put it on your eyelashes.  In the scene, I got ready to do that, and I spit, and Mary Badham had never seen it, and she just totally broke up, and we just kept it in the scene.

You appeared opposite Robert Culp in a rival medical drama, Ben Casey.

Here’s what I truly remember.  It used to be fashionable, if you could get it just right, to just put a little bit of bella donna in your eye and then it’d make your pupils really big.  Very dangerous to be doing, of course.  I don’t know where I got bella donna – probably from my eye doctor – but I decided before my closeup I’d put some in my eyes. 

Well, of course everything got really, really hazy.  I could remember my lines and everything, but I couldn’t see that well.  And then there was a script change – and I couldn’t read!  I faked my way through it.  I just had the script girl read it to me several times over, and made some excuse why I couldn’t read it myself.  Can you imagine being that ridiculous?

Do you remember your appearances on The Untouchables?

I remember the one with Luther Adler, because my character had to come up to her front door, and then there were people shooting at her.  What they did was wire the bannister, and they put too much juice in it, and I lost the hearing in my left ear for, I’d say, at least five months.  It came back.  Movie sets are dangerous!

On Gunsmoke, I was playing some prairie wife, and the locusts were coming.  Now that was bad enough, that you’re sitting in a buckboard, plowing through the fields at a great rate, and all these – I guess they were rubber [bugs] – but masses of them are being blown in your face by a wind machine.  But during this particular Gunsmoke, I had gotten a flu of some kind, and my fever was up to about 102.  I could not even stand, and the A.D. said, “You’ll understand, Collin, I have to ask you if we can get this one last shot.  We’ll lash you to the seat in the buckboard.”  I said, “Sure.”  They were going to kill me!  But I agreed.  I said, “Oh, sure.”  Always be a trouper.

You were on The Fugitive twice, with David Janssen.

Always with The Fugitive, we shot in the most ungodly, tacky locations, it seemed.  This one ["Approach With Care"] was around a rubber tire refuse place.  There were towers of ancient rubber tires everywhere.  I don’t know how five hundred people always found David Janssen, but they did, and they would arrive at the shoot.  He had his great big trailer, and he would never sign autographs.  They would even get to the point where they would start shaking the trailer.

During the mid-sixties you made several TV appearances together with your second husband, Geoffrey Horne.  One was a Route 66 where Horne has a really showy part, and you make a little cameo as a glamorous girl who jilted him years earlier.  Do you remember that?

I do.  “Is It True That There Are Poxies at the Bottom of Landfair Lake?”

That’s very good – how did you remember that title?

Because I was on that shoot when President Kennedy was assassinated. 

Yes, I was there as a cameo, because Geoffrey wanted me there and we travelled together, and I didn’t mind doing a cameo.  It was in Savannah.  The announcement [of the Kennedy shooting] was made on the set, so the set closed down for the rest of the day.  When we were in our hotel room that night, there was dancing and cheering like it was a Mardi Gras on the streets. 

But worse than that was our experience when we all got back to the shoot the next morning.  Everyone was really, really very depressed, and moving slowly.  And the A.D. or the assistant A.D., who usually had a golf club with him – you know, taking swings at the [imaginary] turf – he said, and these are the exact words, “All right, everybody, back to work.  The assassination was yesterday.”

You must have felt really out of touch, being far from home and in the deep south when that happened.

Yeah, it was absolutely horrible.

You also did an episode of The FBI with Geoffrey and with Colleen Dewhurst.

Oh, I forgot he was in that!  Working with Colleen was beautiful – what a great and fine and generous actress she was. 

I’ve got the greatest story to tell you about that show.  Geoffrey and I adopted three children.  The mother had abandoned them and they’d been in McClaren Hall in California, where they put juvenile delinquents in the holding tank for kids whose parents had abandoned them, and then they went to a foster home.  They were having to remove them from the foster home because the foster parents had twelve kids in there, and that was too many.  So we adopted them, all in one fell swoop.  The eldest boy was eight and a half, the girl was four and a half, and the baby was eighteen months. 

The social worker brought them to the house.  The baby was fine, but the two other kids looked as if they had seen the devil in front of them.  I was standing there with my arms open and smiling at them and welcoming them.  They had seen that episode, “The Baby Sitter,” and the big scene where Colleen snatches off my wig and I’m all bald and burned underneath!  Well, imagine you’re these little orphans coming to your new home, and here’s this [same woman]?  It took a little while to get over that.  “No, no, no, no, your new mommy was just acting.  It’s not me.”

As Verna the waitress (“She makes great pies”) on Longstreet (“Eye of the Storm,” 1972)

Did you like Los Angeles, and acting in Hollywood, after you moved west with Geoffrey?

You know, except for Rome, I really haven’t liked any place but here.  The mountains are just so much a part of me.  I loved Malibu and on the beach, but the L.A. kind of life, the show biz life, was never anything I wanted to be a part of.  I always knew I’d come back here.

When did you move back to North Carolina?

1978.  I left L.A. when those drive-by shootings were starting to happen.  The women, except for me, were either carrying brass knuckles, or they had a pistol stuck in their pack at their side, or some other form of protection against attacks.  And there was the cocaine rage during that time.  If you walked into an office, the people in power were practically all doing cocaine.  It was like you weren’t one of them if you weren’t doing that. 

And then there was the other thing.  I was in my mid-forties, and I thought, my god, have they all discovered I really can’t act?  There weren’t many parts coming in.  Plus, my youngest child, Michael, was still at home, and we’d had an earthquake that just absolutely terrified him.  So I said, okay, let’s go home.

I met Scott several months after I’d been home, and we were married in August of ‘79.  We live in the log cabin I was raised in, and that I inherited.  We have five dogs and one cat and two kittens and two horses and a pony.  I grew up on the side of a mountain, and Frank Lloyd Wright said that the side of a mountain was the sweetest place to be.

Collin Wilcox passed away on October 14, 2009.  More here.

If i don’t give my life to you I haven’t lived.

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]]> http://hope42day.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/the-pivot-questionnaire-and-more/ Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:31:54 +0000 Annie http://hope42day.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/the-pivot-questionnaire-and-more/ http://spacetiger.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/how-do-you-sleep/ Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:01:57 +0000 S. http://spacetiger.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/how-do-you-sleep/ http://bernielatham.com/2009/01/29/cast-of-the-simpsons-on-actors-studio/ Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:26:11 +0000 Bernie Latham http://bernielatham.com/2009/01/29/cast-of-the-simpsons-on-actors-studio/

subsequent parts also available but you have to go get them yourselves, you lazy bastards

h/t to my incredible daughter

Como vocês estão cansados de saber, o sistema de Stanislavski (e não o “método”, que era ensinado por Lee Strasberg no Actors Studio) se baseia na interpretação de que o ator deve “viver o papel”, mas mantendo um distanciamento da entrega absoluta – ou seja, deve se descolar da personagem, ainda que demonstre suas emoções.

Diferente de Brecht, que exigia o distanciamento da platéia (“distanciamento, e não paixão” era seu lema) para que a peça pudesse acordar a mente do espectador a fim de comunicar sua versão da realidade, então os atores deviam demonstrar que estavam no palco, e não na vida real.

Imagine você explicando uma porra dessas para o Charles Bronson.

Bronson entrou no teatro porque queria grana, como demonstrou em suas frases famosas, tais como:

“Atuar é a coisa mais fácil que eu já fiz. Talvez por isso eu tenha ficado no ramo.”

“Não faço filmes para críticos porque eles entram de graça no cinema”.

Durante as filmagens, Bronson ficava quieto e ouvia as orientações do diretor. Só. Depois ia lá e fazia a cena (talvez por isso Sérgio Leone o considerasse o maior ator com que já trabalhou. Imagine Leone com Marlon Brando, perguntando o tempo todo qual a motivação da personagem…).

Uma vez deu um esculacho em Otávio Mesquita – o adorável apresentador pediu uma mensagem para o Bananão e Bronson respondeu “O que é Brasil?”

Um cara que faz Desejo de Matar,4 continuações, dá um esporro no Otávio Mesquita e não sabe o que é o Brasil merece ficar para sempre no panteão dos deuses.

Sou capaz de apostar que se ele ressuscitasse, seu primeiro ato seria dar um cacete no Vin Diesel.

Descansa em paz, Il Brutto.

The Galloping Crud finds yet another target.

The galloping crud caught up with me yesterday and ran me over.  I’ve been blowing my nose so much that I had to send my hubby out on a special run for more tissues.  And since Dee on cold meds is never a good mix for creative endeavors, I’ve decided to fall back on some quizzes that I saw today on several favorite blogs of mine.  This first one is patterned after a series of questions the host asks on the show “Inside the Actor’s Studio” and I got to read Miss Violet’s answers on her blog http://www.limenviolet.com/blog/  “Lime and Violet’s Daily Chum.  The following are my answers:

What is your favorite word?
Beloved

What is your least favorite word?
Wait.

What turns you on creatively, spiritually emotionally?
A quiet, cozy place that is warm and inviting, with NO bugs and with upbeat Celtic or Southern Gospel music playing.
What turns you OFF ?
Agressive, pushy people.

What sound or noise do you love?
The sound of a train whistle in the distance.

What  sound or noise do you hate?
A dentist’s drill.

What is your favorite curse word?
Shit.  Or “shisse” if I’m feeling particularly bi-lingual.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Meteorologist

What profession would you not like to do?
Salesperson

If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Come on in.  I’ve been expecting you.

And for your additional quizzical pleasure, Wendy Knits http://wendyknits.net/ has issued the 5 Things quiz challenge.  Here are my answers:

5 things in my bag:

1. Billfold
2. Date book
3. Kleenex Pack
4. Cell phone
5. Migraine meds

5 favorite things in my room:

1. Laptop computer
2. Bookcase
3. Printer
4. Yarn Stash (it’s huge but I’m counting it as one thing)
5. Label Maker

5 things I have always wanted to do:

1. Have a book published.
2. Move to a warmer clime.
3. Cross the U.S. by train
4. Play the tympani.
5. Grow my hair really long.

5 things I am currently into:

1. Digital Scrapbooking
2. Knitting
3. Writing
4. Blogging
5. Spiritual Formation

So, how would you answer any of these questions?  Feel free to post your answers in the comments section.  And now if you will excuse me, I have to go find another Kleenex.

Hubo un tiempo en que yo defendía a Héctor Noguera. En serio, dijeran lo que dijeran, yo lo defendía. Lo vi varias veces en el teatro y hasta en una oportunidad me acerqué a él por que su actuación me pareció demasiado buena (fue en Novecento, si mal no recuerdo). Pues bien, aunque no me arrepiento de lo que hice, pasa el tiempo y uno se comienza a poner más exigente en todo sentido. Tal como uno deja ciertos hábitos, como el vino en caja, dejé de creer en Noguera. Nada personal, de hecho, reconozco que tiene sus momentos, pero simplemente me aburrí de verlo actuando de sí mismo una y otra vez. Más que del actor, me aburrí de quienes son siempre ellos mismos al actuar. Pensemos en alguien como Richard Gere, ¿qué diferencia hay entre el Richard Gere de Pretty Woman y … no sé, cualquier película donde actúe él?

Admito que cuando tienes una vida dedicada a actuar, puede ser fácil repetirse. Ni siquiera es propio de los actores: es común que escritores, directores, o lo que sea, se repitan. Todos fallamos. El problema es cuando tu método actoral se basa en repetirte constantemente. Pensemos en Al Pacino. Segun IMDB, el 92′ actuó en ‘Perfume de Mujer’ y el 93 en ‘Carlito’s Way’. Eso sí es un cambio, eso sí es encontrar en si mismo dos seres diferentes, con gestos distintos, aspecto distinto. Cinco años después hizo ’El abogado del diablo’, es decir, otro gran personaje, otro gran cambio. Pacino toma riesgos y muchas veces sale para atrás, sin embargo hay ocasiones en las que sorprende y esos momentos parecieran anular los fracasos. Lo mismo pasa con Gena Rowlands y muchas actrices, que se entregan al personaje y trabajan por encontrarlo hasta que, de pronto, aparece.

“Es la paradoja del actor encontrarse en cada personaje que encarna sin dejar sus propias características y ser distinto al mismo tiempo. Ponerse al servicio y dejarse llevar. Ser uno mismo y ser otro al mismo tiempo, y, fundamentalmente y ante todo, creer en ello y hacernos creer.” (La Mímesis y la Caracterización Interna, Alexei Vergara y Hugo Marchant) 

 

 

Johnny Depp is one of the most versatile and intriguing actors working today. Launching his career as a teenage heartthrob, then moving into eccentric roles in films like Edward Scissorhands and What�s Eating Gilbert Grape, he has alternated between independent films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and mainstream blockbusters like Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, leading to the inescapable conclusion that his future is as bright and varied as his vivid, unbridled imagination. In this unforgettable 2002 interview, Depp gives the students of the Actors Studio a rare glimpse inside the method that brought inspiring characters, like the charismatic Don Juan DeMarco, gonzo journalist Raoul Duke, and eccentric filmmaker Ed Wood, to life.

Inside the Actors Studio: Johnny Depp is available at Amazon for $8.49. To Order click here
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• Johnny Depp Photo Album
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• Inside the Actors Studio: Leading Men
• Johnny Depp: The Illustrated Biography
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