I am absolutely delighted to announce our first ever Twitter Spaces! I'll be in conversation with Michael Rozek - groundbreaking writer/director of Isabelle Huppert's first one-actor film, Marianne. We'll talk: working with Isabelle Huppert, filmmaking, cinema, film industry and more. Join us on @distractedfilm : Sunday, February 2nd...
Read More
How creativity and progression are linked. Creativity is about starting with a blank sheet of paper and discovering what might fill it. If we simply repeat what we have done before then it is simply not creativity. Creativity is a process of discovery, largely through trial...
Read More
Subscribe | @greatactingblog Optimism; setbacks are temporary and limited, not permanent and pervasive. They will pass if you keep working. Quitting; if you quit then you throw away all the lessons you learned from your struggles. The expansive mindset; the conservative part of our natures...
Read More| Subscribe | John Cleese's book, Creativity, gives a fascinating insight into the creative process of one of the minds behind Monty Python and Fawlty Towers. One of the joys of this book is that it can be read in such a short gallop - just under...
Read More
The performance in your head is nothing - what actually took place is the actual performance. It’s not real - the director, the editor, the other actors, the final audience, cannot see what is inside your mind. They respond to what they see on screen or...
Read More
Anna Magnani uses the full breadth and force of her personality in Luchino Visconti's Bellissima. An actor's personality is their performance. Range does not exist. Anna Magnani was known as “the volcanic mother of all Italian Cinema” and this is almost literally true in Luchino Visconti's...
Read More- Mifune embodied steadfastness, integrity and samurai spirit. - You have to root for the one who is outnumbered by the enemy but stands up to them anyway. - The Ronin acts out his rage and frustration, knowing that in the end it’s hopeless. He knows that...
Read More
|Subscribe To The Great Acting Blog| Orson Welles described Jeanne Moreau as the greatest actor in the world. Quite a recommendation. Here I examine Moreau's performance in Louis Malle's Lift To The Scaffold, and try to articulate what makes her such an essential actor. By the time...
Read More[caption id="attachment_175666400" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Monica Vitti in Antonioni's L'Eclisse[/caption] I first encountered Monica Vitti in Antonioni's L'Eclisse, a film which I had originally obtained, bizarrely, on video tape, as it had not yet been released on DVD then. I was immediately struck by her moody-poetic screen...
Read MoreWhen an actor is an artist - Béatrice Dalle is our example here. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1050"] Béatrice Dalle, Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue...
Read More