I just re-read one of the Delsarte acting posts I put up months ago. Gee, I didn't do a very good job of explaining it. Let me try again, using my own words and my own sketches this time.Delsarte believed that certain movements are highly symbolic and powerful. When you're happy you want to throw your arms up in the air. When you're sad you want to put your head down and slump forward. Probably everybody in the world recognizes and uses these gestures...everybody except actors.
Delsarte believed that actors avoid these obvious gestures because they seem too over-the-top, too caricatured. He thought that was a pity because no other gestures convey so much power. He created a system for using gestures like these without looking ridiculous.
In the sketches above, drawing A is a watered down version of the gesture that's full strength in drawing B. The second has a lot more power, especially when seen from the side, but it might be too strong for some scenes. Delsarte says, use the broad gesture anyway, but do it at an angle that would flatten it a bit from the audience's point of view, as in drawing C. Interesting, huh?
Delsarte wanted to bring broad gestures like the one on the left above, back to acting. Of course extended arm poses aren't the only type of broad action he was interested in. The guy on the right doesn't simply talk to his friend to get his attention, he grabs his arm before speaking. That conveys to the audience that what the speaker's saying is important. The arm grab's a powerful symbol and Delsarte wonders why we don't use it.
Sometimes a gesture combines two powerful symbols. Here's (above) a gesture indicating strong emotion that ends with a strong but unexpected "come hither" gesture.
21 comments:
First, read this: Wikipedia's entry on Delsarte.. It's pretty short and makes the situation re: his theories clear.
Secondly: if you want to see that kind of acting D. W. Griffith had some of his actors use it in his earliest silent films--the ones he made before he moved the camera an inch in a scene or had many closeups(or much in the way of what we thik of as modrn fimmmaking at all-much more like stage work), from 1908-1910 or so. Even so, not all his actors would use the Delsarte-like method; Mary Pickford in particular(who'd had a stage career before movies, most particularly with David Belasco, a kind of Griffith of the Broadway legit stage)thought Griffith's direction was corny and sometimes ridiculous: "Ooh! A little bunny! [hands thrown in the air in exctasy]"! as she put it--he kind of youthful bounciness that Griffith wanted all his ingenues to do(again, very early--long before stuff like "Broken Blossoms" in 1919 years later which had much mor subtlety and, not surprisingly, closeups--as the two go hand in hand).
What I'm saying is that the book you take Delsarte's beliefs from apparently wasn't written by anyone who'd worked with him directly, and his "method" was degraded by that. And the fact is it IS too "over the top" to throw your hands up in the air in depair to communicate happiness. Actors--good actors-- knew this as long as 100 years ago.
Where broad gesteure can be useful is in comedy--but only when used where it creates an accent that has an effect, in the perfect context.
Reading your description reminded me of seeing "Laughter on the 23d Floor" on Brodway with Nathan Lane playing Sid Caesar(written by Neil Simon, he renamed all the parts but it was representative of his days writing for Caesar, with Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Carl Reiner).
Lane did go really broad with his body, but he did it where it's unexpected and funny and made you believe the man he was playing would do it.
I guess that's the crux of the whole deal, come to think of it: good acting or good storytelling requires you to do things that surprise the viewer while at the same time still being plausible and believable(if a character just threw his hands in the air or did some other tic just anywhere, it would be meaningless and not funny, at least not after the first time--likely never).
The failure of the degraded "Delsarte" method resulted in the opposite: it presented really bad acting by people who did totally proscribed gestures that you knew were coming a mile away.
To pull it off at the best of times a performer has to have the world's most perfect, split-second timing, and most don't possess that.
Those gestures are great, but what do you think of the disney ratatouille style of "half shrug" both palms outstretched at opposite angles with "sadness curves" on the top corners of both widened eyes style of 'acting' that seems mandatory for any 'serious' scene?
Eddie, can you think of any recent movies that utilize what you're talking about here?
Mimes still use the broad stuff.
I'll try to remember this (a "film-making student"). HEY, OFF-TOPIC, have you seen this?? (Put an eye on "1:03"). It looks like 'theory corner' material.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rt4VSKvU8Q
Jenny: Interesting article! Fans of Delsarte are always complaining that his ideas were degraded by susequent teachers, and I have no doubt that they were. Myself, I'm a fan of both the pure theory and the degraded one.
What you said about Nathan Lane's unexpected gestures was really interesting! Why not do a whole post about this on your own site and I'll link to it. I'd like to hear more about it.
Glam: Hmmm. "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" had a lot of Delsarte in it. You see it in John Ford films. The black and white version of Detective Story had it.
Diego: That band is horrible!
"You see it in John Ford films".
The devil you say!
I don't believe it, noooo siree! No way, no how. : )
I think there is more room in contemorary drama for this. I think actors unfairly associate it with hamminess, simply because it can so easily lend itself to hamminess. But Jenny is right; a small can of stock gestures can quickly become stale.
>>The black and white version of Detective Story had it.<<
Blasphemy!
Detective Story is the opposite of how you're describing Delsarte!
Every character is a shaded individual with his or own set of mannerisms.
oh damn! sorry.... I actually didn't even think of the band's quality. I suppose that video makes me laugh... that's it.
Jenny: Haw! Sure you see them in John Ford. In "The Searchers" when everybody stands up on the porch in a profile shot after sighting John Wayne; that's Delsarte. Ford could have had some people stand and some people lean, but leaning is a less powerful symbol. Everybody had to stand, and he held the shot for a long time to let it sink in. The film is full of shots like that. They're corny but they work.
Hey, I don't mean to bug you about it, but if you have the time sometime in the near future why not do a blog on unexpected gestures, the kind you talked about in your last comment? It's a lot to ask for because it's probably a big subject and it would require film clips or frame grabs.
Aaaargh! Come to think of it, that's too much work for one post. There is one site on the net that deals with things like that. A guy who writes film books runs it but I can't remember his name. Mike Barrier linked to it once.
IDRC: Well, there are a lot of powerful symbols but you're right, the number is limited. So what? There's also a finite number of normal, weak symbols and they get used all the time. No theory works if it isn't applied judiciously.
John: Actually I was thinking about deleting the refernce to Detective Story even before you wrote. There are dozens of better examples.
About the characters in that film being shaded and having their own distinct mannerisms... yes, of course they're like that. That doesn't contradict anything I said. Delsarte's belief in strong poses doesn't mean that he believed that ONLY strong poses should be used. That's a caricature of the idea.
On another point, unrelated to John's comment, I'll observe that having a theory site is an interesting experience. If I say I like chocolate then someone will ask what I have against licorice, and someone else will make the point that a steady diet of chocolate would obviously result in death. Yet another person will resent my arrogance for trying to force my opinion about chocolate down other peoples' throats, and before you know it there's a movement afoot to tar and feather me for being a public menace.
But I'm being too harsh. Everybody, including me, uses arguments of the type I described. If they didn't the conversation would be a bore fest. Ignore what I said above. I'm just touchy on the subject of Delsarte.
Eddie, I just watched a highly entertainng documentary on Youtube about Harold Lloyd. It was a PBS production called "The Third Genius" (a two-parter). His body language was very broad and exagerrated, but also highly controlled and subtly nuanced with character. I thought he would be a great guy to study for animation inspiration, because his movements are SO funny and easily read and appreciated.
What do you think about him?
PS I like chocolate too ;)
AWESOME post eddie. i really like your acting theories. i'd love to hear more about acting and dialog!
Kelly: Harold Lloyd's great! I think I saw the documentary you mentioned but I'm not sure. I'll look it up on YouTube.
Eddie, I can't see anything in "The Searchers" that I would ever call "corny". There isn't a corny frame in the film! Iconic, yes.
There's a far cry from the Delsarte you described and the family standing on the porch at the end of "Searchers". But perhaps the disconnect I read between the example and the descriptions you gave means I'm misunderstanding you.
Anyway, considering the context of the scene in Searchers, NONE of the characters would plausibly lean!--a lean being too casual and so positively nonsensical considering what "sighting" Wayne's character means to them at that point.
He holds the shot(though what "a long time" means is debatable)not to exhibit 19th century declaiming poses but for two-dimensional filmic impact--for composition, for the tableaux, which is purely for the purposes of film storytelling. The rocks of Monument Valley is as important a character in Ford's storytelling as the people at times. His technique owes nothing to Delsarte, much much more to classical painting. There's sentiment and comedy ham in parts of many of Ford's films but very very very little in The Searchers, which is unrelentingly grim(and powerful).
On behalf of Admiral Ford I feel compelled to post that. ; )
I think the discussion of old acting theories is interesting, but I also think it's a bad fit for applying to film "acting" which is SO incredibly intimate--remembering that the actor's faces were 50 feet high in many theaters--and that the closeups meant you could see an eye twitch. The more broad a performance, the more restrained and internal and actor has to be. That does NOT mean they have to be dull or non-emotive; Douglas is so electric he jumps off the screen in "Detective Story". But he's a tightly-wound guy who controls his actions(while appearing to be totally losing control). I don't see any Delsarte influence there either.
I wonder what he'd have to say about it--I think you'd tell him he was wrong anyway! ; )
Also, feel free to yell at my comment. I certainly yell at the hairs on your posts all the time. : D
Jenny: John Ford learned his trade in the silent era when Delsarte's method's were still being taught and used. You yourself gave an example of how Griffith tried to impose his undrstanding of it on actors. It was in the air. Is it so unlikely that Ford was influenced by this?
I think you're getting thrown by my use of wide arm poses in the sketches. I don't know how often Ford used those specific poses poses, or if he used them at all. I picked graphically extreme poses because I only had a small space and a few words to make my point.
Chris: Thanks! I couldn't open the link you sent last week but I'll try again!
Hey Eddie, since we're on the subject of motion theory, I was wondering if you ever understood Leban theory. I've tried to read about it a few times and really have no idea what it's about at all!
BTW I love this stuff about Delsarte and movement theory. Great stuff!
taber: I read a little about Laban in Ed Hook's book but wasn't much impressed with it. If you decide to read Delsarte get it from the library, don't buy it. It's very dry reading.
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