An Actor's Editor
Reading this passage from D.T. Max’s engaging profile of filmmaker Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, next week’s Duplicity) makes me wonder if awards for best performance ought to be shared with editors and directors:
John Gilroy, Tony’s brother, is editing the film. Gilroy asks him to cue up more footage from Rome. Each take presents a small variation. In one, Roberts doesn’t look back at all. In another, the children steal the scene with their ebullience. The look that Roberts casts over her shoulder actually has an important structural role in the movie. Roberts plays Claire Stenwick; Owen is Ray Koval; both are career intelligence officers. Several years earlier, at a party in Dubai, Claire, then with the C.I.A., met Ray, then with MI-6; she seduced him, drugged him, then stole some military codes from his briefcase. For Ray, a ladies’ man—the script describes him as “Ray with the good suit and the easy smile”—there were multiple humiliations in this fleecing. He has spent the intervening years nursing not only his anger but also his passion for her. Rome marks their first meeting since that entanglement, and Gilroy wants the audience to be unsure if Claire knows that she’s being pursued. Perhaps she has laid another trap for Ray. Roberts’s glance must instill the viewer with a tantalizing sense of uncertainty just this side of frustration.
John runs more film, and Roberts keeps gliding by, her face expressive despite dark glasses. In one shot, she twists her neck. “That look is way too strong,” Gilroy says. In some takes, Roberts appears coyly amused; in others, she seems indifferent, a woman in a rush. Finally, in Take 5, Roberts gives a glance backward that is delectably ambiguous, turning back with a half smile. Is she looking at the children? Listening for Owen? Is she just enjoying Rome? A pigeon flies up behind her. The children play with fervor but don’t distract. Owen deftly navigates the street, his unbuttoned Armani jacket flapping in the breeze. He looks great. Gilroy, leaning back in his lounge chair, smiles at his brother. “See, it just works,” he says. “She turns her head at the right moment. Where it falls—here.”
I saw Duplicity at an early screening this afternoon, and Julia Roberts is quite good: tough, smart, sexy, mysterious, charming, easily lovable — everything she ought to be in a role like this. It’s not revolutionary, but I do think she deserves some praise for her work. Yet passages like the one above reveal the complexities of assigning credit in collaborative mediums like film. Implicit in Max’s scene is the question: Is Roberts really a good actor — or is Gilroy just a clever filmmaker?
Sure, Roberts gives a strong performance, but what if Gilroy and his brother hadn’t chosen their shots so carefully? And what if Gilroy hadn’t forced Roberts to do more than a dozen subtly different takes, as revealed in the paragraphs prior? How much credit does Roberts really deserve when, through choices made entirely by others, her performance might have varied drastically — and potentially been far worse?
i’d throw in writers, too.
it’s incredible how many Best Actor Oscars are really awarded for screenplays.
— raft · Mar 14, 02:58 AM · #
Film has always been the director’s medium. Stage is the actor’s medium; it’s the environment that the actor can control. I’ll assume that the director asked Roberts to give all those subtle performances. Her genius is that she can. Can all of us, when asked, give a half dozen different backwards glances with different meanings? Also remember that she’s shooting the movie out of sequence. At least in a play, there’s an arc for the actor to follow. In many films, the last scenes may be shot first.
— Martin Hollick · Mar 14, 03:36 AM · #
Well, Julia Roberts has been a movie star for 20 years, so it’s probably not all Mr. Gilroy’s doing.
This, by the way, explains why it’s a bad idea to remake successful movies like The Manchurian Candidate. A whole lot of things had to come together to make the movie work that well, and the odds are they won’t come together as well the second time around. It’s more promising to remake unsuccessful movies like “Ocean’s 11” that failed for fixable reasons (e.g., Sinatra and friends weren’t getting enough sleep).
— Steve Sailer · Mar 14, 06:31 AM · #
If you haven’t not yet read it, I can’t recommend Michael Ondaatje’s “The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film” highly enough.
When it was recommended to me, I resisted at first because I thought it was an editing primer. It’s not. It is in fact, a profound work about creativity; with some exceptional insight into effect of collaboration on monumental artwork; frescos and films for example. The copy I was given by a filmmaker friend has been passed along no less than six times.
— Tony Comstock · Mar 14, 01:56 PM · #
This reminds me of football, where there’s a trope that the running back winning an award is the closest the offensive line comes to being recognized. There’s probably a number of areas where you get awards going to individuals that reflect on a broad group of assistants or supporters. The next one to come to mind was race-car drivers, with their pit crews and engineers, and so on—sadly, I have no knowledge of how awards work for them.
— Justin · Mar 14, 07:09 PM · #
Directors will be the first to admit that actors, at least the good ones, are more than marionettes, and some are geniuses. No matter how good you are at writing, directing, shooting and editing, if you want your film to be watchable, a competent actor is a must, and a natural is a godsend.
— JA · Mar 17, 03:30 AM · #
Directors will be the first to admit that actors, at least the good ones, are more than marionettes, and some are geniuses.
I’m a documentarian, so my only experience as a director working with actors is working with voice over artist. I simply cannot overstate how astonishing it is to give a script to an actor and have it interpreted. Yes, I wrote the words; and yes, I do offer direction during session; and yes, after the session I’ll make the ultimate determination in which readings of what lines I’ll use.
But the things I do are writing, directing, and editing. They are not acting. If I make poor selections as editor, that might (mistakenly) reflect poorly on the actor. But if I make good choices, it’s only because the actor gave me the opportunity.
— Tony Comstock · Mar 17, 06:00 PM · #