Acting & Performance in Film - Essay Example

Other (s) Acting & Performance in Film Actors and actresses often use a number of tools of the craft of acting to enhance their physical, vocal and emotional engagement with the audience during their role performances in films. Some of the main tools commonly used by actors and actresses in the contemporary film industry are endowment, relationships, display of emotions, character private moments, action (verbal and physical) and personalization. This paper discusses various tools of the craft of acting as used by Louise Fletcher in the Film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Kieu Chinh in the film Joy Luck Club. Lastly, the paper also highlights some of the similarities and differences of their choice of acting tools. Acting tools used by Louse Fletcher in the film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Louse Fletcher (acting as Nurse Ratched) is a renowned actress who has been awarded the Best Picture winner for her role as the main antagonist in the film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Produced in 1975, the drama film was one of the best acted drama films of the 1970s. One of the main acting tools significantly used by Louse Fletcher in playing her role is personalization of authority. Throughout the film, Louse Fletcher played the role of a cold, heartless and authoritative nurse who wields absolute authority over her subordinates and patients. As the head of the hospital ward, Nurse Ratched has personalized power, and she rules her ward with an iron fist with little sense of femininity and humanity (Canby 4). She also selects her staff based on their submissiveness and manipulates her patients by making them feel inferior. Another important stylistic acting tool used by Louse Fletcher in her role as nurse Ratchet is heightened language. During most of her engagements with the patients and the subordinates, the nurse uses high-octane communication and in some cases shouts at people in her attempts to assert her authority. This important tool not only shows the development of her character but also captures the theme of tyranny in the film. In this regard, Louse Fletcher has effectively used her dialogue skills to develop her character role and connect with the emotional state of the surrounding environment. Finally, the use of obstacles as a tool of acting is also evidently present in Louse Fletcher’s role. For example, in her attempt to exercise absolute power over the patients and workers at the hospital, nurse Ratched faces numerous obstacles in the form of stiff resistance and opposition from a number of individuals such as Randle McMurphy. At one point McMurphy attacked nurse Ratched and nearly chocked her to death. Acting tools used Kieu Chinh in the film The Joy Luck Club Kieu Chinh is a famous Vietnamese American actress best known for her role as Suyuan Woo in the film The Joy Luck Club. The film, which was produced in 1993, is largely about the clash between Chinese and American cultures as evidenced in the complex relationships between Chinese-American women and their conservative Chinese mothers. Acting as Suyuan Woo, Kieu Chinh artistically plays her role in the film by portraying an image of a strong and assertive woman who, despite her numerous hardships, chooses to struggle and achieve success and happiness. One of the main acting tools used by Kieu Chinh is endowment. According to Hagen (113), endowment is the essence of making the audience believe something in the film through the bodily actions and gestures of the actor or actress. In numerous instances, Kieu Chinh has effectively used endowment as a tool to make her role more realistic. For example, it is through Suyuan Woo’s gestures, bodily movements and expressions that the audience is able to see her as a strong willful woman. Another important acting tool used by Kieu Chinh in her role as Suuyan Woo is action (both verbal and physical). Throughout the film, she portrays an image of a hard-working mother, which is particularly manifested in her protective actions in relation to her twin daughters. She demonstrates her verbal action when she teaches her daughter the values that were denied to her while in China. Some of the values she verbally teaches her daughter include the values of assertiveness, self-worth and dignity. She also struggles as a mother to ensure that her daughter grows up as a responsible and morally upright individual. Additionally, Kieu Chinh demonstrates the use of action as a tool by showing a motherly figure in her role as Suuyan Woo. The arguments between her and her daughter in trying to decide what she should do with her life also confirm the use of verbal action as an acting tool. As seen in the film, it is through the important virtues of action and strength that Suuyan Woo is able to locate her lost twin daughters in China after a long period. Only death was able to prevent her from returning to her daughters. Lastly, throughout her role in the film, Kieu has also extensively used character secrets as one of her acting tools. For instance, Suuyan Woo insists on protecting her daughter from the effects of American culture because of the secrets of her past life as well as her cultural background. In their culture, Suuyan and other three women grew up in a collectivist environment of China; in this environment, open conflicts were not permitted and individual needs were not given priority. She has kept this background as a secret but keeps on attempting to make her daughter acquire some of her values and cultural beliefs. Similarities in the acting choices of Louse Fletcher and Kieu Chinh There are a number of similarities in the acting tools used by Louse Fletcher and Kieu Chinh in their roles in the abovementioned films. For example, both actresses have significantly employed the use of heightened language as a style in their film dialogues to help them convey emotion and a sense of power. In both cases, the actresses have persistently used their language as a symbol of their power in numerous dialogues with other characters. This kind of acting tool is normally used not only to create comic effect but also to contribute to the development of the themes of the film (Hagen 181). For example, in the film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Louse Fletcher satirizes her language to portray her as above her patients and subordinates at the hospital. On the other hand, Kieu Chinh also uses heightened Language on numerous occasions to assert her role as a powerful woman. Another similarity in the acting styles of the two actresses is their excessive use of endowment as a tool of acting. For example, throughout their performances, both Louse Fletcher and Kieu Chinh have artistically used their body language to make their actions on stage be more realistic. In this regard, they have successfully endowed every action and object to make their roles more comic and realistic. Differences in the acting choices of Louse Fletcher and Kieu Chinh Despite numerous similarities, there are a number of differences in the choice of acting tools used by the two actresses. For example, Kieu Chinh uses action to create an image of a hard working and powerful mother. Louse Fetcher, however, chose to use physical character work to assert her role of as a cold, heartless and authoritative nurse. The other visible dissimilarity in the choice of acting tools used by the two actresses is that each of them has used different acting tools to connect with the sociological, political and economic contexts of their time. For example, Louse Fletcher cruel voice and sense of power is a symbolic representation of the tyrant bureaucratic leadership styles which were common in the 1970s when the film One Flew over the Cuckoos was produced (Canby 6). On the other hand, Kieu Chinh has effectively managed to create an image of a powerful woman in her role without cowing other characters into submission or making herself superior. This is particularly attributed to her cultural background, which encourages equality among members of the society. Works Cited Canby, Vincent. “Critics Pick: One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”. The New York Times. 20 November 1975. Web. 15 September 2012. Hagen, Utah. Respect for Acting. 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & sons, Publishing, Inc, 2008. Print. Read More