The Great Acting Blog: “The Context And It’s Work”

An actor should always allow the context within which the scene takes place to do it’s work, that is, he need only play the actions asked of him by that particular scene, and need not worry about what has taken place in preceding scenes. One reason for this is it helps the actor give a simple, precise and true performance, but also, it leads to better storytelling, which is, therefore, better for the audience. The alternative is to explain the meaning of the scene to the audience through characterization, which is the acting equivalent of exposition; we’ve all scene those serial killer movies where the guy walks in the door wearing a smile which says: “hi, I’m you’re new daddy, but I’m also a mass murderer”, or there’s the kind of actor who makes the character wear “a certain kind of sunglasses” even when no sunglasses are mentioned in the script, either way, this kind of acting makes tragedy seem less tragic, and comedy less comic. It’s far more provocative and captivating to simply play the scene (or, infact, the moment), without explanations, and let the audience join the dots.

A brilliant example of allowing the context to do it’s work, can be seen in Luis Bunuel’s The Diary Of Chambermaid. Michel Piccoli plays a hen-pecked member of the landed gentry, and starved of sex by his domineering wife, who only seems to care about money. To overcome his frustration, Piccoli tries to seduce the new chambermaid, played by a very beautiful Jeanne Moreau. Despite several wholehearted passes at Moreau, it becomes apparent that she is little more than a coquette, so Piccoli turns his attention to the second incoming chambermaid, who is gamely played by Muni.

It is the scene where Piccoli seduces Muni that we see the context at work. Muni plays Marianne, a middle aged washer woman, barrel-shaped, sad and downbeat, she looks as though she’s never been touched by a man, in short then, the very opposite of Jeanne Moreau. Piccoli approaches her in all seriousness with the intention of seduction, and we guess at this even as he walks towards her, although Piccoli does not indicate it. Initially, Muni rebukes Piccoli when he says that she must’ve “got upto mischief” as a young girl with a defensive “I’ve worked all my life”, and she’s gobsmacked when Piccoli describes her, without passion, as “a little minx”. Finally, she weeps after Piccoli arranges to meet her in his room later that night, as though she had waited decades for God to send her a man. But the irony is of course, that Piccoli is even more desperate, but he plays the scene seriously, as though he is fully in control, like a consummate lover embarking on yet another illicit affair. Of course, we know that this isn’t true, and that the affair is much more important to Piccoli because of what has happened in preceding scenes, and so it is as a pair of desparados that the two of them disappear into a barn to make love. Bunuel’s scene is gently mocking and ironic, but made more effective because of it’s context, and because Piccoli (and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere) allow that context to do it’s work, they never try to explain the scene in order to make sure “we get it.”