Best Acting Scenes.... EVER! take 2 - by jstnomega
jstnomega on 21/12/2008 at 04:04
Respecting the thread necromancy warning when trying to reply to (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120166&highlight=acting) http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120166&highlight=acting from March 08, 2008, in which I said:
Quote:
Catherine Burns in Last Summer absolutely takes the cake. The camera hit her form afar and did a slow close-up to her face, during which, IIRC, she spoke of her mother's recent (drowning?) death. She gave a good 90 second to two minute unbroken soliloquy, maybe even longer. It was so hypnotically rivetting as to be transcendent - the most memorable acting I've ever seen.
Ironically, I was on an airline flight in 73 and sat next to a fellow NYC actress who said she knew her. That's when I knew envy.
Anyway, was not posted to youtube until October 25, 2008, so here it is now.
If you should watch this on a mere computer monitor, keep in mind that I saw this in 1969 at the old World Theater in Saint Paul, MN, since refurbished & rebranded as the Fitzgerald Theater, home to & site of
A Prairie Home Companion radio broadcasts. It is a two-tier balcony, one thousand seat capacity theater, so you can imagine the immensity of the movie screen and the relatively greater impact of seeing actors portrayed so very large, esp in facial closeups such as these. No wonder I've never forgotten this acting. BTW, two tight closeups lasting 1:22 & 1:46 respectively. Seems to me that's a very long time to be on camera, making this all the more impressive. Enjoy.
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uza-bAtoVdE)
Nonomori on 21/12/2008 at 23:17
Any Al Pacino rant...
Thirith on 22/12/2008 at 07:51
Quote Posted by Nonomori
Any Al Pacino rant...
While Al is (almost) always entertaining to watch, a lot of his rants aren't among the best acting scenes... They're not even particularly good acting.
I sometimes feel that we're pretty much conditioned to see overacting done with a modicum of style and charisma as good acting, when really it's just showboating. I'm not saying that every big performance is automatically bad - Daniel Day Lewis' "I will drink your milkshake!" is anything but naturalistic but in its way is quite magnificent - but I've grown tired of the generic Academy Award-winning, "Hoo-hah!"-ing kind of performance that is often touted as "great acting".
After
The Wire, I have to say that e.g. Andre Royo's acting as Bubbles is up there with the best acting I've seen; and if you want to go for big characters, I take the best of Al Swearengen (
Deadwood) over almost anything that Pacino has done in the last ten years.
Scots Taffer on 22/12/2008 at 08:37
Agreed. Although I started the original thread, I think that more often than not truly great actors do not shine in standalone scenes but rather through their consistent and practically anonymous existence within the character.
McShane's turn in Deadwood is a perfect example - no one scene defines the character of Swearengen but the combined essence of his performance across the seasons pools together into a formidable presence.
I'm angling for The Wire boxset for Christmas so hopefully I'll get to enjoy all seasons of that too, soon.
Pitch on 22/12/2008 at 17:42
Quote:
I think that more often than not truly great actors do not shine in standalone scenes but rather through their consistent and practically anonymous existence within the character
Yes, that's why I think Doug Jones deserves an honourable mention for his work in
Pan's Labyrinth.Yell Piranha on 23/12/2008 at 13:23
Quote Posted by Pitch
Yes, that's why I think Doug Jones deserves an honourable mention for his work in
Pan's Labyrinth.Agreed. Also Andy Serkis for Gollum and King Kong (the ape, not the chef guy). Neither of those films would have worked properly without convincing CGI characters and Serkis was key in creating them.
