So I don’t write a lot about acting, pretty simply because I’m a person who wants to make movies and so I think about movies more through the lens of people who produce the films, and not those who perform in them. Which is dumb, because actors are as big a part of a movie as the director or editor. So I’m going to fix it.
Right now, at large, we value naturalist acting in mainstream culture. The more “believable” or “real” someone’s performance is, the more true to life we can be convinced they are, the better we think it is. We want to feel like we’re seeing a real person up on that screen, no matter how ridiculous the situation they’re in may be.
However, by prizing naturalism in our performances, we tend to, by default, label anything exaggerated or clearly artificial as being “hammy” or “cheesy.” This is a shame, because it defines unreal acting as automatically “bad” and leaves the big and bold embodiment of a character’s emotions of expressionist acting out in the cold.
Rather than embrace the idea that actors need to sell their reality as truthfully as they can, we need to give some broader attention to the fact that acting, which draws attention to its artificiality, can both be as engrossing and entertaining as a realist performance, and better serve certain movies’ larger purpose. And standing bigger and goofier and more ridiculous than almost all in this field is the work of Quentin Tarantino.
Think about the acting in “Pulp Fiction,” “Inglourious Basterds” and the “Kill Bill” movies. Think about Tarantino’s work as a ridiculous Australian cowboy in “Django Unchained.” Think about Sam Jackson delivering bible verses at a fever pitch and debating the nuance of foot massages. It’s far from natural. It’s intense, or it’s exaggeratedly cool, but it’s serving the purpose of reinforcing the insane, hyper-active “all cinema all the time” world of Tarantino’s films.
And he’s found huge mainstream success with this formula, mostly because of how clearly artificial his worlds are, how woven into their fabric cinema itself is, and that we’re willing to accept it as part of the super-stylized reality of his films. Actor Christoph Waltz has even been given not one, but two Oscars for these performances (look no further than “THAT’S A BINGO” to see what I’m talking about).
But expressionist acting exists on an even larger scale outside the mainstream, where it’s purpose is much more pointed and less evident, and so it’s more easily labeled as “weird” or “unbelievable.” Take, for example, David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive.”
Through the first three-quarters of the film, every performance is overtly dramatic, cagey and fake, barring one moment of “realism” in Naomi Watts’ audition performance. After that three-quarter mark, though, the dreamworld nature of the film is revealed, the “reality” of the world kicks in and we get the true to life, Hollywood performances we’re expecting.
The expressionist performances that we see for the majority of the film help create the surreal nature of the dream, and are part of the entire film’s purpose of creating this direct view into a character’s mind; the single break with the style within the dream serves both to underline that moment’s importance (I don’t want to give too much away because you need to see it, it’s a fantastic film), and to help clue us into the fact that yes, these people can act the way we want them to, but they’re very deliberately not.
And this deliberate use of non-real acting is crucial to the entirety of “Mulholland.” If the film had been played straight, it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well; there are some situations in which realism just isn’t what’s called for (David Lynch’s quasi-soap supernatural detective murder mystery “Twin Peaks” follows this same sort of performance logic. And it’s also my favorite show ever and you should check it out.)
All this brings me to a man who has been, I feel unfairly, demonized for his pointed and artistic use of this style in an attempt to redefine both himself as a performer and his work at large. I’m speaking, of course, about Nicolas Cage.
He’s stated repeatedly in interviews that he’s trying something new. Something that isn’t traditional acting, but an attempt to fully embody and express his characters’ mental states. Something that involves going beyond comfortable, realistic acting in order to reach an original method of bringing a character to life.
Look at his performance in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.” It’s completely and utterly off the rails. Look at both of his turns in “Adaptation.” Neither of them are real, but that’s the point. He’s pushing his art form, and whether or not you particularly appreciate it, you shouldn’t at any point mistake it for a lack of talent. It’s just not talent the way we’re used to.
So yeah, the point is keep your mind open to new forms of performance, and open your artistic horizons to allow less traditional types of work in. I guess. But more importantly: Nick Cage is actually really great. I’m going to keep pushing this.
Think Nick Cage is secretly the greatest actor ever? Let Austin know at wellens@wisc.edu.
