An Introduction to Film

character—an older stage actress in danger of los-
ing roles because of her age—she triumphed in
Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All about Eve(1950), gener-
ally regarded as her greatest performance. During
her long career, Davis was nominated eleven times
for the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role,
winning for Alfred E. Green’s Dangerous(1935) and
William Wyler’s Jezebel(1938). Nominations for an
Oscar as Best Actor in a Leading Role involve a peer-
review process in which only actors vote. Davis’s
record of nominations is exceeded only by Meryl
Streep’s (thirteen nominations), Katharine Hep-
burn’s (twelve), and Jack Nicholson’s (eight).

Method Acting

During the studio years, movie acting and the star
system were virtually synonymous. Although act-
ing styles were varied, the emphasis was on the
star’s persona and its effect at the box office—on
the product, not the process of acting. And as pro-

duction processes were regularized, so too was

acting. That’s not to say that screen acting in the

1930s and 1940s was formulaic or unimaginative;

quite the contrary. On Broadway, however, stage

actors were becoming acquainted with a Russian

technique that became known as Method acting.

Method acting did not make a major impact on Hol-

lywood until the 1950s, but it marks a significant

point in the evolution of screen acting from the stu-

dio system’s reliance on “star acting” in the 1930s

and 1940s to a new style in which actors draw on

their own personal experiences and feelings in an

attempt to become the character.

What Americans call Method actingwas based on

the theory and practice of Konstantin Stanislavsky,

who cofounded the Moscow Art Theater in 1897 and

spent his entire career there. Developing what

became known as the Stanislavsky systemof act-

ing, he trained students to strive for realism, both

social and psychological, and to bring their own

past experiences and emotions to their roles. This

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The movie star Elizabeth Taylor epitomizes what we

mean by the term movie star: talent, beauty, sex appeal, and

a glamour that dazzled the world. As a child star, the product

of the studio system, she appeared in such movies as Lassie

Come Home(1943) and National Velvet(1944). As a teenager,

she came to prominence as Angela Vickers in [1] George

Stevens’s A Place in the Sun(1951), a romantic but tragic

melodrama. During her most fruitful period—the 1950s and

1960s—she starred in such movies as George Stevens’s

Giant(1956), Richard Brooks’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1958),

Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Suddenly, Last Summer(1959), and

Daniel Mann’s BUtterfield 8(1960). Her career took a brief

downward spin with Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra(1963), one of

the most lavish, expensive, and unsuccessful films of all time.

A survivor, she recovered in two impressive roles: Martha [2]

in Mike Nichols’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?(1966) and

Katharina in Franco Zeffirelli’s The Taming of the Shrew

(1967). In all, Elizabeth Taylor appeared in more than 50 films

and was awarded three Oscars as Best Actress. Long after

she quit her acting career, she remained a star, lending her

name and reputation to raising hundreds of millions of

dollars for AIDS research and other humanitarian causes.