Acting and realism
Nov. 6th, 2006 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've been thinking about standards of 'realism' and 'realistic' when it applies to acting.
This is actually relevant to what I've been studying, only slightly sideways.
There's acting that is deliberately stylised, and acting that is for the stage, and acting for the camera, and there's a lot of differences.
The thing is, 'realism' is a set of conventions, a way of writing and reading. And 'realistic' is very culturally determined, and based on personal experience.
I keep on reading people knocking the acting in... well, come to think, rather a lot of shows I watch. But it seems to me that more than half what they are complaining about is that they aren't playing the same reading game as the actors are figuring they will. I mean, if they think *everyone* is overacting, then actually what is happening is they don't like the *style*. Right?
But also... Saying a scene is overacted is saying they made the expressions too big. But... People do that. I mean, some people are just very expressive. Some people express on such a scale they can emote to the back row even though they've never been on stage. And some people really are just that camp. Not 'camp' as in 'gay', though there's overlap apparently, but 'camp' as in 'writ large', very expressive, and stuff like talking being more about telling anecdotes and saying things to get a specific effect (the laugh, the sympathy, whatever).
So, saying Captain Jack is kind of exaggerated *isn't* saying he is unrealistic. Is just a kind of expression that isn't popular on TV lately.
Yesno?
I may be different in my standards here. I study body language as if it is foreign, out of books and stuff. And possibly working better with subtitles.
But I still reckon, some people are just like that. So it isn't a question of realism, it is about conventions of artistic expression.
Related is saying that a bit of acting was 'too much' because it stayed full on all the way through an episode. But... the situation is that extreme, the reaction could be extreme too. It isn't unrealistic, it just doesn't suit the reading game.
If the emotion being conveyed is apparently innappropriate to the scene, yeah, maybe badness, but if it just seems too loud, not so much.
... Don't know. Not sure. That's just what I figure.
This is actually relevant to what I've been studying, only slightly sideways.
There's acting that is deliberately stylised, and acting that is for the stage, and acting for the camera, and there's a lot of differences.
The thing is, 'realism' is a set of conventions, a way of writing and reading. And 'realistic' is very culturally determined, and based on personal experience.
I keep on reading people knocking the acting in... well, come to think, rather a lot of shows I watch. But it seems to me that more than half what they are complaining about is that they aren't playing the same reading game as the actors are figuring they will. I mean, if they think *everyone* is overacting, then actually what is happening is they don't like the *style*. Right?
But also... Saying a scene is overacted is saying they made the expressions too big. But... People do that. I mean, some people are just very expressive. Some people express on such a scale they can emote to the back row even though they've never been on stage. And some people really are just that camp. Not 'camp' as in 'gay', though there's overlap apparently, but 'camp' as in 'writ large', very expressive, and stuff like talking being more about telling anecdotes and saying things to get a specific effect (the laugh, the sympathy, whatever).
So, saying Captain Jack is kind of exaggerated *isn't* saying he is unrealistic. Is just a kind of expression that isn't popular on TV lately.
Yesno?
I may be different in my standards here. I study body language as if it is foreign, out of books and stuff. And possibly working better with subtitles.
But I still reckon, some people are just like that. So it isn't a question of realism, it is about conventions of artistic expression.
Related is saying that a bit of acting was 'too much' because it stayed full on all the way through an episode. But... the situation is that extreme, the reaction could be extreme too. It isn't unrealistic, it just doesn't suit the reading game.
If the emotion being conveyed is apparently innappropriate to the scene, yeah, maybe badness, but if it just seems too loud, not so much.
... Don't know. Not sure. That's just what I figure.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 04:38 am (UTC)Agreed 100%. Which is not to say that it isn't still fairly damning criticism, though. If something isn't working for someone, pointing out the sociohistorical reasons for why it isn't working isn't going to make it any better.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-07 09:48 am (UTC)... this may well all have been my response to people Being Mean To My Favourites. Because you know, big words explain why they really are the bestest ever.
But if a whole lot of people don't like it then they don't like it. *nods*