I was just thinking...

Just a little post really, but I was just thinking about some projects I've done myself. Although I've never acted it's obvious to see why some people like working together, and some don't.

You build up relationships with people, and you start to find out what they like, and they find out what you like. You feel confident in approaching them with new ideas or just tlaking about the project in general.

News

After reading through the Hitchcock/Truffaut there was nothing really new that I didn't already know, or hadn't read before. It was good to have a first hand account and source, but all the important bits had already been referenced or just paraphrased on other sites.
He only really goes into detail a few times in the book, and it's already stuff that I've wrote about.
The winter break is coming up so it's a good time to get more research done.

Hitchcock Book Research

Ok so it's Hitchcock again, but I think he's a very fascinating character, and it's interesting to see his approach to, and working with actors. Yesterday I got three books about Hitchcock out from the University library.

I got out the rather well known - "The definitive study of Alfred Hitchcock By Francois Truffaut"

It's essentially one long interview of the normally very guarded Hitchcock by Truffaut.

Hitchcock talks about his films, his choice of actors and the way he worked with them.


I'll put more up when i take a closer look at it.

Scorsese, De Niro. Scorsese, DiCaprio

Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro have worked together on nine films, and have one the most successful director/actor relationships. De Niro, at the time of their first collaboration, was quite an unknown actor. Their work together on Taxi Driver brought both men into a creditable light and paved the way for their further successes.

Scorsese wrote, or co-wrote a lot of the films they worked on together, including - Mean Streets, Casino, and Goodfellas. He and De Niro also helped in the construction of the screenplay for Raging Bull, however they were both uncredited.

Scorsese has recently worked a lot with Leonardo Dicaprio. In some sense, this is a modern pairing of Scorsese & De Niro, but they are a very successful and dynamic partnership in their own right.

Scorsese has had no major input in his recent collaborations with Dicaprio, from a screenwriting element. However, his last three films, The Departed, The Aviator, and Gangs of New York have all featured Dicaprio in the starring role. They will also team up for Shutter Island, due out in 2010.

In a way, Scorsese gave De Niro his first real break, and then their pairing earned both men huge acclaim. Conversely, De Niro was interested in Dicaprio's abilities since they worked together on This Boy's Life. De Niro apparently recommended Dicaprio to Scorsese for the lead in Gangs...
Whatever the circumstances, it seems Scorsese can command a great deal of respect and trust from his actors, as so many high profile stars want to work with him time and time again.

Hitchcock again...

As I've been researching into Sir Hitchcock I found out some information about how he worked with actors, and the way he viewed them while making a film.

Hitchcock was uninterested with the 'method' style of acting. He thought actors should just focus on getting the right performance, and let directors and screenwriters work on developing the character and showing it's dimensions. Once apparently asked by Paul Newman what his character's motivation was, Hitchcock replied - "Your salary."

In my humble opinion, Hitchcock's approach to acting, and his way of working with actors is somewhat narrow minded. However, of all the Hitchcock films I've seen, there is rarely a bad performance, apart from some of the slightly ham acting in his early films. So maybe his approach to make the actors merely perform the lines rather than have them delve into the character's pysche and try to figure out a motivation was just good directing.

Hitchcock often saw actors as nothing more than props perhaps. He was one of the first 'official' Auteurs, and his work is experimental, so he saw no real reliance on actors, as a huge amount of his films are told through camera movements and placement etc...

Perhaps Alfred's feelings for actors are summed up with a famous quote that was attributed to him - "actors are like cattle."

He maintaned however that he said "actors should be treated like cattle."

Which isn't really much better.

Hitchcock Collabo's

Sir Alfred Hitchcock made many films over the course of his career. He is also quite known for his collaborations with many high profile actors and actresses who appeared in 3 or more of his films. Some of these stars include, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, James Stewart and Grace Kelly.

Hitchcock also worked with Leo G Carroll in six of his films, yet I find it interesting that when we think of Hitchcock working with a certain actor more than once, we would generally think of James Stewart, and then probably Cary Grant.

Classic Partnership

Writer/Director - Werner Herzog and Actor - Klaus Kinski

Collaborated on -

Aguirre:The Wrath Of God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q3D0h4xCro

Nosferatu The Vampyre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1KO55JBuFE

Woyzeck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1B7Vi3vdJw

Fitzcarraldo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pJ76nAkysM&feature=related

Cobra Verde

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdOmH1SgZsc&feature=related

*Snippet of the documentary which focused on their relationship*

Mein Liebster Feind

Starting research

Today I have decided to begin some initial research into my chosen field.

I will start by first just looking at who some of the most successful writing/directing and acting partneships have been. This will be a good jump off point as I can then branch out into looking specifically at a few of them.

First Postings

I had a meeting with Peter Dillon on the 28th October 2009. This was the first meeting about the research and documentary proposal. We both discussed my idea and we decided that it was too broad to go into in depth.

My initial proposal was to look into the process of scriptwriting from start to finish. From the first ideas all the way through to seeing it on the screen. I would also look into the details of the writing and how the writers work with the directors that transform their piece.

We talked it through and decided that it would be better to focus on the specifics of the relationships that writers/directors have with the actors that they use in their films.

This was a more refined idea for a proposal and there is a fair distance that I can go with this. There are many well known writing/directing and acting partnerships so this will be interesting to write about as I can get quite in depth with it.