THE INDEPENDENT ACTIVITY

Disclaimer and in full disclosure: I do not know, have never met nor spoken to the makers of the documentary "char•ac•ter".

From the last recorded interview with Sidney Pollack from "char•ac•ter" produced and directed by Drago Sumonja.

Greetings everyone,

Not long ago I posted about the documentary "char•ac•ter"

http://working-with-actors.blogspot.com/2010/10/character.html

Today, a very well regarded, highly respected, and fine actor colleague friend of mine sent me this email note after I recommended and he watched the movie documentary "char•ac•ter". He wrote:

"The film is wonderful, especially the supplemental footage.
Tell me, Pollack was fascinating about the "Independent Activity."

Care to elucidate?"

It would take volumes . . . to really get into it, but the questions raised
by Pollack's segment about the "Independent Activity" reverberate through Mamet's notorious "MASTER CLASS MEMO"

http://working-with-actors.blogspot.com/2010/03/david-mamets-master-class-memo.html

Which is to say that the "Independent Activity" impacts writing, directly, and acting in a most powerful way. It's a technical term and approach to expressing, finding and portraying the inner life of a character at all phases of the creative process.

It's actually a lot more than that too . . .

Sometimes questions are better than answers.

Good morning,
José

Note: The only issue I take with this otherwise extraordinary and essential documentary "char•ac•ter" is that it's devoid of a feminine perspective on the subject of acting and directing. This thus opens the door for that doc, that has yet to be made.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

JILL CLAYBURGH'S UNFORGETTABLE "UNMARRIED WOMEN"

Jill Clayburgh as Erica in "An Unmarried Woman" in 1978.

Clayburgh’s Unforgettable ‘Unmarried Woman’

An Appraisal
By Janet Maslin

Published: November 7, 2010

In the most famous scene in Jill Clayburgh’s most influential movie, her character reacted to the news that her husband wanted to leave her. Ms. Clayburgh’s Erica responded with such naturalness, confusion and wounded pride that she captured the imagination of a generation.

“As Miss Clayburgh plays this scene,” Vincent Canby wrote about “An Unmarried Woman” in 1978, “one has a vision of all the immutable things that can be destroyed in less than a minute, from landscapes and ships and reputations to perfect marriages.” But she proved that a reputation could be made in less than a minute too.

Has any actor’s career ever been more powerfully affected by a prefix? It was the “un” in “Unmarried” that established Ms. Clayburgh’s creative power. Women’s roles had been changing irrevocably, and a new assertiveness was being established and understood. But the usual story lines of that era followed female characters’ quests for independence and authority. Heroines rebelled. They picked themselves up and moved out. They took action. They weren’t acted upon.

Their roles were often sharply defined, but Erica’s was not. Paul Mazursky, the writer and director, had a divorced friend who described herself as “an unmarried woman” on a mortgage application. Extrapolating from that, he envisioned the story of a Manhattan wife set adrift. But Ms. Clayburgh’s shaping of the character was utterly and unmistakably her own, just as surely as its impact on female movie audiences was universal. And the unaffected nature of the performance became its most distinctive feature. She didn’t have the tics of Diane Keaton, the steel of Jane Fonda, the feistiness of Sally Field, the uncanny adaptability of Meryl Streep. She simply had the gift of resembling a real person undergoing life-altering change. In her signature role, that was enough.

“Mr. Mazursky has written a marvelous role for the actress, so I suppose it’s not unfair of him to depend on her to carry the movie,” Mr. Canby wrote. Carry it she did.

Ms. Clayburgh, who died at her Connecticut home on Friday at 66 after living with chronic leukemia for 21 years, had been on stage and screen for a decade before giving this definitive performance. But she could be awkwardly miscast and at first often was. She was blond, willowy and beautiful, but she was about as much like Carole Lombard as James Brolin was like Clark Gable (“Gable and Lombard,” 1976). Without “An Unmarried Woman” she might never have found her niche.

But once she did, she began a streak. She went from playing an opera star in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1979 “Luna,” one of the most conversation-stopping films ever to open the New York Film Festival. She made widely seen comedies about smart, interesting women (“Starting Over” in 1979, “It’s My Turn” in 1980). She even turned up on the Supreme Court (“First Monday in October” in 1981), a likable presence even in highly unlikely circumstances. “The F.B.I. is wrong in reporting to you that I have no children,” she had to tell cinematic senators in that film. “Ideas are my children, and I have hundreds of them.”

Then she and her husband, the playwright David Rabe, had real children, Lily and Michael. And although Ms. Clayburgh kept working, her public presence grew more intermittent, the available film roles more motherly or eccentric. (She appeared in the 2006 film version of Augusten Burroughs’s “Running With Scissors.”) She was so greatly missed that any major appearances were apt to be described as comebacks (two television series in the late ’90s, “Barefoot in the Park” on Broadway in 2006), but the roles that should have been welcoming hardly existed anymore. Only in life did anyone wonder what had become of all those Ericas 30 years later.

She remained elegant, lovely and so recognizable that she became accustomed to being treated as an avatar. “My God, you’ve defined my entire life for me,” one weeping “Unmarried Woman” fan told her in 2002, and that experience was apparently not unusual for her. When she and Lily, an actress, roomed together in Manhattan in 2005 as both of them prepared for stage appearances, a writer for The New York Times visited the 61-year-old eternal heroine and still saw her unforgettable movie persona.

“Jill Clayburgh appears to be living in an updated Jill Clayburgh vehicle,” Nancy Hass wrote. “Fluttery-yet-determined mom flees comfortable exurban married life to share tiny Manhattan apartment of headstrong, aspiring-actress daughter. Conflict, hilarity and, of course, self-actualization ensue.” For Jill Clayburgh, in both her life and work, that’s just what happened.

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

FINDING THE BEHAVIOR OF CONVERSATIONAL REALITY

Jodie Foster talks about rehearsing with Robert DeNiro for "Taxi Driver." "Taxi Driver" Collector's Edition DVD
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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

char•ac•ter

This is a great documentary. A compilation of the best "shop talk" I've ever heard on film. if you are an actor or director this is the best $25 you will ever spend on your craft. - José Angel Santana

website

"A raw and candid dialogue about the life and craft of acting between longtime colleagues and friends Dabney Coleman, Peter Falk, Charles Grodin, Mark Rydell, Harry Dean Stanton and including a very special interview with Sydney Pollack. Drago Sumonja's document takes us into the hearts, minds, and living rooms of some of America's greatest storytellers. This unique and inside glimpse at this revered collective exposes as much about each individual as it does about acting." Written by Cody Henderson

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

JAMES FRANCO IN AND ON "127 HOURS"

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

ABIGAIL GAMPEL IN "THROUGH THE WINDOW"

(ckick image to enlarge)

Abigail Gampel

"Through the Window"

Directed by Holli Harms

Abigail on TCD*S

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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

BILL REILLY

The world has lost one of the great teachers and mentors to filmmakers of all time. He recognized talents in others when they were getting started that they didn't know they had. And because of his encouragement, his belief in young artists he helped them to believe in themselves. What a great and loyal and kind friend. I will miss him forever. William Reilly.
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"Elevate the subtext." William Reilly