JOAN CRAWFORD'S ACTING STYLE

Haw! I can't wait to see if the blog can handle a picture this big! I pity the people who are looking at this on a mobile phone. 

Anyway. that's Joan Crawford in a close-up from "Humoresque." Tonight I watched a TCM documentary on Crawford at John's place, and I saw a lot of pictures I'd never seen before. Seeing them provoked what I thought was a deeper understanding of Crawford's  acting style. I'll tell you what that understanding consists of, but first take a look at the pictures (below) that provoked it.  

Crawford (or her photographer) tried out a number of personas in her portraits. Any one of them represents a possible career path she might have taken. Here (above) she tries out  an innocent girl-next-door look, layered over with ambition, neurosis and intelligence.

Here (above) she's purely innocent and idealistic. I don't doubt that she could have pulled it off on screen, but I'm glad she didn't go this route. Innocent is a great look for young actors, but she wouldn't have have been able to sustain it as she got older.

Ditto the weird, hard-core sci-fi look. She's great at it, but you can only play that for so long.

She experimented with weirdness a lot. 

I think she wanted to convince the studio to make the kind of stories that favored her kind of nuanced weirdness.  Maybe she was inspired by Garbo.

All those experiments with innocence and weirdness weren't wasted, though. As her later persona evolved, she just folded these qualities into it. As time went by she developed an immensely layered screen personality. 

How would you describe this close-up expression (above) from "Humoresque?" She looks weird, innocent, mature, young, dignified, idealistic, hurt, worldly, shocked, vulnerable, steely, philosophical, kind, and potentially cruel...all at the same time! Sheeesh!

For me Crawford's best period was middle age. She'd had a lot of random nuances before that, but that's when she finally figured out how to focus them. During that period she discovered dignity. She kept the fascinating youthful nuances and allowed them to co-exist with a caricature of the kind of dignity the best people seem to acquire in mid-life. Not only that, but she bundled these qualities together in a stylized, over-the-top theatrical style. 

So that's it. That, I humbly submit, is part of the secret of Joan's midperiod acting style.