Abstracts
Abstract
In this article, the author considers factors in commercial 1930s American theatre and film which led to the unusual circumstance of many stage-trained actors employing ostensibly theatrical acting methods to respond effectively to the challenges and opportunities of industrial sound film production. The author proposes that with American sound cinema fundamentally changing employment prospects on Broadway and Hollywood production practices, the 1930s represent a unique moment in the history of American performing arts, wherein stage-trained actors in New York and Hollywood developed performances according to principles of modern acting articulated by Stanislavsky, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and the acting manuals written by theatre-trained professionals and used by both stage and screen actors. To illustrate certain aspects of the era’s conception of modern acting, the author analyzes a scene from Captains Courageous (Victor Flemining, 1937) with Spencer Tracy and a scene from The Guardsman (Sidney Franklin, 1931) with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.
Résumé
Dans cet article, l’auteure s’intéresse aux facteurs qui, dans les années 1930 aux États-Unis, ont amené de nombreux acteurs issus du théâtre à livrer, sur la scène aussi bien qu’à l’écran, des performances basées sur les principes du jeu théâtral moderne (articulés par Stanislavski, enseignés à l’American Academy of Dramatic Arts de New York ou décrits dans les manuels d’art dramatique) pour s’adapter à l’arrivée du parlant, puis à l’industrialisation du cinéma sonore, qui ont profondément bouleversé les perspectives d’emploi à Broadway et les méthodes de production à Hollywood. Pour illustrer certains aspects de la conception que les acteurs formés aux arts de la scène se faisaient du jeu moderne à cette époque exceptionnelle de l’histoire américaine des arts du spectacle, l’auteure analyse une scène jouée par Spencer Tracy dans Captains Courageous (Capitaines courageux, Victor Fleming, 1937) et une scène du film The Guardsman (L’officier de la garde, Sidney Franklin, 1931) interprétée par Alfred Lunt et Lynn Fontanne.
Appendices
Bibliography
- Albertson 1947: Lillian Albertson, Motion Picture Acting, New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1947, 135 p.
- Anonymous 1899: anonymous, Annual Catalogue of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts 1899, New York, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 1899, n.p.
- Anonymous 1912: anonymous, “Arliss on the Actor’s Calling,” New York Times, March 24, 1912.
- Anonymous 1915: anonymous, “Barker on Stanislofsky,” New York Times, March 21, 1915.
- Anonymous 1952: anonymous, “Jehlinger is Dead; Teacher of Actors: Dean of American Academy of Dramatic Arts Had Developed Many Stage, Film Stars,” New York Times, July 30, 1952.
- Bailey 2013: Jason Bailey, “‘The Perfect Idiot’s Profession’: When Famous Actors Ridicule Their Craft,” The Atlantic, January 7, 2013.
- Baron 1998: Cynthia Baron, “The Method Moment: Situating the Rise of Method Acting in the 1950s,” Popular Culture Review, Vol. 9, no. 2, 1998, pp. 89-106.
- Baron 1999: Cynthia Baron, “Crafting Film Performances: Acting in the Hollywood Studio Era,” in Alan Lovell and Peter Krämer (eds.), Screen Acting, New York, Routledge, 1999, pp. 31-45.
- Baron 2006: Cynthia Baron, “Performance in Adaptation: Human Movement in Motion Pictures,” Cineaste, Vol. 31, no. 4, 2006, pp. 48-55.
- Baron and Carnicke 2008: Cynthia Baron and Sharon Marie Carnicke, Reframing Screen Performance, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2008, 301 p.
- Baron and Warren 2012: Cynthia Baron and Beckett Warren, “The Actors Studio in the Early Cold War,” in Cynthia Lucia, Roy Grumman and Art Simon (eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell History of American Film, Volume III, 1946-1975, Malden, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, pp. 137-57.
- Barton 2006: Robert Barton, Acting Onstage and Off, 4th edition, Belmont, Thompson Wadsworth, 2006, 374 p.
- Blum 1950: Daniel Blum, A Pictorial History of the American Theatre 1900-1950, New York, Greenberg, 1950, 288 p.
- Boleslavsky 1933: Richard Boleslavsky, Acting: The First Six Lessons, New York, Theatre Arts Books, 1933, 122 p.
- Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson 1985: David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, New York, Columbia University Press, 1985, 506 p.
- Bosworth 2007: Patricia Bosworth, Montgomery Clift: A Biography, New York, Limelight, 2007, 438 p.
- Brown 1943: Gilmor Brown and Alice Garwood, General Principles of Play Direction, New York and Los Angeles, Samuel French, 1943, s. n.
- Brown 1986: Jared Brown, The Fabulous Lunts: A Biography of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, New York, Atheneum, 1986, 523 p.
- Carnicke 2000: Sharon Marie Carnicke, “Stanislavsky’s System: Pathways for the Actor,” in Alison Hodge (ed.), Twentieth Century Actor Training, London and New York, Routledge, 2000, pp. 11-36.
- Carnicke 2009: Sharon Marie Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 2nd edition, London and New York, Routledge, 2009, 252 p.
- Clark 1995: Danae Clark, Negotiating Hollywood: The Cultural Politics of Actors’ Labor, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1995, 168 p.
- Cronyn 1949: Hume Cronyn, “Notes on Film Acting,” Theatre Arts, Vol. 35, June 1949, pp. 45-48.
- Curtis 2011: James Curtis, Spencer Tracy: A Biography, New York, Knopf, 2011, 1024 p.
- Davis 1946: Bette Davis, “On Acting in Films,” Theatre Arts, Vol. 25, September 1946, pp. 633-39.
- Dillon 1940: Josephine Dillon (Gable), Modern Acting: A Guide for Stage, Screen and Radio, New York, Prentice-Hall, 1940, 313 p.
- Funke and Booth 1961: Lewis Funke and John E. Booth, Actors Talk about Acting, London, Thames and Hudson, 1961, 281 p.
- Garfield 1984: David Garfield, The Actors Studio: A Player’s Place, New York, Macmillan, 1984, 318 p.
- Geraghty 2000: Christine Geraghty, “Re-examining Stardom: Questions of Texts, Bodies, and Performance,” in Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams (eds.), Reinventing Film Studies, London, Arnold, 2000, pp. 183-201.
- Gould 1958: Eleanor Cody Gould, Charles Jehlinger in Rehearsal (pamphlet), New York, American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 1958, n.p.
- Hirsh 2001: Foster Hirsh, A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio, New York, Da Capo, 2001, 368 p.
- Klumph 1922: Inez and Helen Klumph, Screen Acting: Its Requirements and Rewards, New York, Falk Publishing, 1922, 243 p.
- Krasner 2000: David Krasner, “I Hate Strasberg; Method Bashing in the Academy,” in David Krasner (ed.), Method Acting Reconsidered, New York, St Martin’s Press, 2000, pp. 3-39.
- Malinauskas 1970: Mark Jerome Malinauskas, “The American Academy of the Dramatic Arts: A History (1884-1897),” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1970.
- McTeague 1993: James H. McTeague, Before Stanislavsky: American Professional Acting Schools and Acting Theory 1875-1925, Metuchen, Scarecrow, 1993, 296 p.
- Payn 2000: Graham Payn, My Life with Noël Coward, New York, Applause, 2000, 404 p.
- Peters 2003: Margot Peters, Design for Living: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, New York, Knopf, 2003, 416 p.
- Raymond 2009: Gerard Raymond, “125 Years and Counting: The American Academy of Dramatic Arts Celebrates a Special Anniversary,” Backstage, November 26–December 2, 2009, pp. 6-7.
- Rosenstein, Haydon and Sparrow 1936: Sophie Rosenstein, Larrae A. Haydon and Wilbur Sparrow, Modern Acting: A Manual, New York and Los Angeles, Samuel French, 1936, 129 p.
- Sargent 1884: Franklin H. Sargent, “Conservatoire, Shall We Have One?,” Century Magazine, no. 6, July 1884, p. 475.
- Schatz 2010: Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2010, 528 p.
- Tomlinson 1994: Doug Tomlinson (ed.), Actors on Acting for the Screen, New York, Garland, 1994, 689 p.
- Vineberg 1994: Steve Vineberg, Method Actors: Three Generations of an American Acting Tradition, New York, Shirmer, 1994, 364 p.
- Watermeier 1999: Daniel J. Watermeier, “Actors and Acting,” in Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby (eds.), The Cambridge History of American Theatre, Volume II, 1870-1945, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 446-86.
- Wilson 1973: Garff B. Wilson, Three Hundred Years of American Drama and Theatre, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1973, 536 p.
- Wilson 2013: Victoria Wilson, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2013, 1056 p.