The Great Acting Blog: “Don’t Be A Me-Me-Me Artist”

The Great Acting Blog: “Don’t Be A Me-Me-Me Artist”

The British Film institute are currently screening a series of rarely seen films from from the heyday of the Japanese Nikkatsu Studio.  I had the good fortune to catch Koreyoshi Kurahara’s The Woman From The Sea, about a young man in a fishing village, who meets a mysterious woman on the ocean and falls in love with her, much to the consternation of the other villagers. It is a wonderful film, shot in black and white, and beautifully acted. Visually it has a dream-like quality, and the scenes are constructed with cleanliness and precision – put it this way: any film which cuts from a medium shot of a man looking at his watch, to a close-up of the watch, gets my vote.

Despite the tumultuous conflicts in The Woman From The Sea (and there many), watching the film gave me a feeling of warmth, and a sense that the filmmakers respected the audience, they genuinely wanted to offer something meaningful, they really wanted to give something to the audience. This is very different to so many of today’s artists, who have no interest in the audience whatsoever, save how they can be leveraged, all that matters to them is their career and their status – it’s all me-me-me.

Don’t be a me-me-me artist. It’s better to be a log fire than a fluorescent light. View the audience as people coming in from the cold. Don’t ask them to admire you, but take care of them instead. If they tell others about your work, let it be out of exuberance for of what they have taken from it, not because you extorted a reaction from them.

Be generous with whatever skills and abilities you may have. Give something.

Subscribe to The Great Acting Blog

RECENT

“What Can You Do?”

 “The Actor Is An Individual Creative Artist, Not An Employee”

 “The Story Of The Tragic Actor”