some recognized criteria, let’s discuss how we can
bring our own experiences to the task. An actor’s
performance on the screen is not only what we
see and hear but also includes many intangibles
and subtleties. That alone makes the analysis of
acting much more challenging. Breaking down and
cataloging other elements of cinematic language—
whether narrative, mise-en-scène, production
design, or cinematography—and using that infor-
mation to analyze their usefulness and effective-
ness is much easier than analyzing acting. Yet
acting (perhaps second only to narrative) is the
component most people use to assess movies. We
feel an effective, natural, moving performance in a
more direct way than other cinematic aspects of
most films, and we feel both qualified and com-
pelled to judge films by their performances.
What accounts for this sense of entitlement?
Why are we so fixated on actors? Why do we so fre-
quently judge the quality of the movie by the (often
intangible) quality of their performances? There
are several reasons. First, although cinematic lan-
guage has a considerable effect on the way we look
at a movie, we also identify with characters and, of
course, with the actors who inhabit those charac-
ters. Second, we identify with characters who pur-
sue a goal. We get involved with this pursuit—one
that is driven by and embodied by the actors who
inhabit the characters—because a movie narrative
is constructed to exploit what most involves us. We
don’t even have to like the characters as long as
we believe them. Third, we identify with characters
because of our own behavior as people. Although
cinematic language draws from our instinctive
responses to everyday visual and audio informa-
tion, we don’t consciously notice and process it as
much as we do human behavior. We are people
watchers by nature, necessity, and desire. We are
constantly analyzing behavior. When you say hello
to a friend or ask a professor a question or order a
cup of coffee from a waiter, you are noticing and
processing and reacting to human behavior. Is the
friend happy? Does the professor think you’re
stupid? Is the waiter paying attention?
Finally, our identification with characters and the
actors who play them has something to do with the
fact that we too behave in a way that is consistent
with our general character or state of mind, and
beyond that, we are also engaged in role-playing. You
present yourself differently, depending on where
you are, what’s going on, and whom you’re with. You
behave differently with a police officer than you do
with your mother or your professor, differently with
a new friend than with an old one.
These are some of the reasons why we react as
we do to actors and acting. But how do we analyze
performance? What are the criteria of a good per-
formance? In their everyday moviegoing, people
tend to appreciate acting very subjectively. They
like an actor’s performance when he or she looks,
speaks, and moves in ways that confirm their
expectations for the character (or type of charac-
ter). Conversely, they dislike a performance that
baffles those expectations.
This approach, though understandable, can also
be limiting. How many of us have sufficient life expe-
riences to fully comprehend the range of charac-
ters that appear on the screen? What background
do we bring to an analysis of the performance of
Humphrey Bogart as a cold-blooded private eye in
John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon(1941); Carlo Bat-
tisti as a retired, impoverished bureaucrat in Vitto-
rio De Sica’s Umberto D.(1952); Giulietta Masina as
a childlike circus performer in Federico Fellini’s
La Strada(1954); Toshirô Mifune as a Japanese328 CHAPTER 7ACTING
DVDThis tutorial examines the effect that
editing can have on our perception of actors’
performances.