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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 2, 2020 12:58:59 GMT
This question is sort of lingering in some of our threads - like if you compare 2 actors from different eras are you comparing just them or EVERYTHING they were subject to - cultural events, writers, directors, film culture in general etc.
There are very few things we can argue have gotten "better" in movies over the years - special effects for one have definitely - but I think acting in the sense of acting overall has gotten better too - in general supporting performance or performances down the whole cast are more solid......but not at the "star" or leading level (so that's answer 5!).
To me, for American films Brando was the change and by the 70s actors represented a codified peak/high point - partially because they got the advantage of a collapse of the studio system for a few years in the time they worked - the last full generation before a lessening of movie importance/home video etc. and while there have been occasional rivals to them individually not as a class ...........no other "lead actors" after them will ever have the advantages they did and that served them too.
How do you see it - I tried to give some specialized options ............other opinions encouraged in the thread and for outside the US as well.
Please think of this as a class overall rather than a specific actor vs. another......
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Post by Sharbs on Mar 2, 2020 14:10:47 GMT
Eh, there's just more. More films to choose from, more performances to take into consideration. Not necessarily better quality wise, but hell im looooving the quantity of it all. To answer, I think if took the top 5 performances from any given year and compare it to another it'd probably be remarkably close more often than not, there's just a plethora of depth since anyone, who feels the need to write and release one and a bit of cash, can release a movie on any given day.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 2, 2020 14:29:49 GMT
By the way that should "be leading men/women" in the poll options 4 & 5 obviously, can't change the poll but just in case there was any confusion it's not just a male poll etc.
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Post by TerryMontana on Mar 2, 2020 14:58:55 GMT
Actors seem less devoted to their craft nowadays....
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Post by bob-coppola on Mar 2, 2020 15:48:16 GMT
This is something I always think about. Of course, old school cinema has produced great acting. Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, you name it. But even if you look into the greatest acting, there's an affected quality in it. They inhabit with excellence the medium, the screen, but it feels more like a romantic, glamourous version of life than life itself. That was something that started changing IMO in the late 60's, and then mostly in the 70's.
I don't know why, since I never studied the history of acting. I guess it could be that, once cinema established itself as a medium apart from theatre, it tried to distance itself from its older brother. That once we had more directors with grounded, gritty vision and ambition, and less big-scale spetacles, acting could become more natural on screen. Or maybe it was the influence of foreign cinema, of the Ingmar Bergmans and italian neorrealists.
I don't know if acting got better, but it got more diverse, natural, subtle and interesting since the 70's. Some great performances from Gena Rowlands, Michael Fassbender, Isabelle Huppert, Kristen Stewart, etc etc etc, that I don't think would've happened pre-70's. There was no place for them in Hollywood back in the day, no place for the more raw, "dirty" aspects of them. The same way, I can't see many great performances from Old Hollywood happening that way today.
I think that, if you compare Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire and Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine - two very similar performances, and two very similar roles, set-up, etc -, it gets clearer. Leigh seems like she's putting on a show, she's affected as if performing for people in the back row, and it adds so much irony to the character she plays 'cause there's no audience in-universe watching her. She's too big for that world. And Blanchett, as hammy, loud, showy and theatrical as she is in this movie, she's also more raw, grittier. She feels like a person having an actual breakdown. And I think it's more interesting to watch.
Maybe I'm talking shit, but from a shallow point of view, this is what I think about this.
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Post by jimmalone on Mar 3, 2020 9:40:58 GMT
It really depends of which time you are speaking. I actually asked me a few days ago if acting has become worse. But I was focussing more onto the lead actors. Cause for once I think the male generation of actors born around 1980 has been weaker than the one before - though of course this can change, as they hopefully have at least half their lives ahead of them - and even that before hasn't been as excellent as the generation(s) of actors born between the 1920s and early 1940s. Brando, Newman, Pacino, Hackman, DeNiro, Duvall, Nicholson haven't found their worthy successors - at least not in masses, of course there have been single exceptional performers like Day-Lewis, Hanks or Crowe, who reached that level as well.
But as you pointed out in the OP in terms of the whole casts and supporting roles it might have become better. I think "Sharbs" put this quite well in saying there's just more films and more performances to take into consideration.
Also those were mainly my thoughts, when thinking about male acting. I think the younger female generation (Ronan, Lawrence, Larson) is incredibly talented.
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Post by countjohn on Mar 5, 2020 5:38:39 GMT
In general, no. There was kind of an awkward period in the 30's where you had a lot of silent actors trying to switch to talkies or stage actors trying to figure out how to do movie acting when it was basically a brand new medium. But once you get into the 40's-early 60's that "old Hollywood" style of acting was really perfected. Then dramatic acting probably peaked in the 60's and 70's. Since then it's been getting worse, every new generation of actors seems less impressive than the one before. Not that there still aren't very good actors working.
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spiralstatic
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Post by spiralstatic on Mar 5, 2020 10:30:54 GMT
This is something I always think about. Of course, old school cinema has produced great acting. Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, you name it. But even if you look into the greatest acting, there's an affected quality in it. They inhabit with excellence the medium, the screen, but it feels more like a romantic, glamourous version of life than life itself. That was something that started changing IMO in the late 60's, and then mostly in the 70's. I don't know why, since I never studied the history of acting. I guess it could be that, once cinema established itself as a medium apart from theatre, it tried to distance itself from its older brother. That once we had more directors with grounded, gritty vision and ambition, and less big-scale spetacles, acting could become more natural on screen. Or maybe it was the influence of foreign cinema, of the Ingmar Bergmans and italian neorrealists. I don't know if acting got better, but it got more diverse, natural, subtle and interesting since the 70's. Some great performances from Gena Rowlands, Michael Fassbender, Isabelle Huppert, Kristen Stewart, etc etc etc, that I don't think would've happened pre-70's. There was no place for them in Hollywood back in the day, no place for the more raw, "dirty" aspects of them. The same way, I can't see many great performances from Old Hollywood happening that way today. I think that, if you compare Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire and Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine - two very similar performances, and two very similar roles, set-up, etc -, it gets clearer. Leigh seems like she's putting on a show, she's affected as if performing for people in the back row, and it adds so much irony to the character she plays 'cause there's no audience in-universe watching her. She's too big for that world. And Blanchett, as hammy, loud, showy and theatrical as she is in this movie, she's also more raw, grittier. She feels like a person having an actual breakdown. And I think it's more interesting to watch. Maybe I'm talking shit, but from a shallow point of view, this is what I think about this. I agree with this. I wouldn't say acting has gotten better necessarily (or worse), but naturalistic acting has become more common and for me, this is what is most truthful in most films. Certainly it does not suit all films and to say this isn't the same thing as saying the acting is "better". But I think, generally speaking, if we are talking about the actors at the top of their field, there is more unaffected truth that can be expressed now. |
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Mar 31, 2024 14:20:37 GMT
Almost every element of filmmaking from special effects to sound and cinematography what could be done with a camera seem to have gotten better except for the writing... it's a mystery we haven't solved yet. Maybe AI could help.....
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