It's not fandom, it's fascination
Wednesday, June 02, 2004I do confess a small abiding interest in actors...I need to keep my mind busy, and going to forums and visiting with people is rather fun. But there's a serious purpose behind the madness, for me. It's not about what they had for breakfast or how many children they have, to me, it's all about story. How do they use themselves to communicate, to create?
For instance...pull out some tapes with Sean Bean in them. How is his Richard Sharpe different from his charcater in Ronin? What's the difference between them and Boromir? How does he use his body, his hands, his face, the inflections in his voice, his eyes, to make those three very different men? How does the charcater you create when you read the Cornwell books compare with Bean's version? Also, do the books seem to change a little, from before the movies were filmed to after? If you watch Oded Fehr in The Mummy, then catch an episode of Presidio Med, everything -- from the way the two men hold themselves, the general expressions on their faces, the way their voices sound -- are very different. It fascinates me to watch the same person taking on these charcaters and making them different.
It teaches me something that I think I can carry into my own work. These people are translating words into pictures, they are solidifying the (...oh...I can't think of the right word...) image of what we concieve this type of character to be like. A gesture, how that character empahsizes certain words, can give you clues how your reader would percieve your own character. You also can see what works, and what doesn't. After all, a character of your own, when you first conceive of him or her, is nothing more than a blank wisp of thought that you add things to...an actor that you can impose total authority upon.
Also, I've been learning a lot about response to character. One of the actors I've been studying recently is a treasure for what I was talking about -- Alan Rickman. Watching how he approaches each role...how he translates the author or scriptwriter's story...is always a treat. Especially interesting is how he took a character from the Harry Potter books... (never read them, but I found a few excerpts describing Snape online) a rather unattractive and unlikable character, and turned him into something that women find alluring and mysterious.
How is this applicable to writing? Well, you need to understand, not just what makes a person a person, but you need to know enough about what visual (and mental doesn't hurt) clues will tell your reader who this person they're drawing in their minds is. If you are a good writer...and I truly hope to be one of those someday...a reader should be able to know pretty much who is speaking or acting without having to relie on the tags. Every charcater should be a totally different individual. For me, this helps partially because it is the same person doing all these things. And you need to do this with several people, because the way one would do a charcater is not the same way another would.
It's also applicable in that we get to see audience reaction. How do the people respond to what the actors are doing? What do they seem attracted to? What doesn't seem to work for them, and why?
I want to know this because I've never made a secret that I want to write things that move people, that provide an escape hatch. Movies are easier to study because it's so compressed...we all spend the smae amount of time watching it, while a book that might take me three days to read might take you a week. And for all that, we're all spending the same amount of time, we all see different things.
It's not something that I spend a great deal of time on...it's one of those projects I build on. But I think understanding the audience, understanding my own reactions, will make me a better writer.
So if I'm not a fan-girl, can I explain the verbal "Woot!" I made when I found From Hell, Chocolat and Dark Harbor (The first two are Jonny Depp Movies, the second an Alan rickman) for 3 bucks in a used movie bin? Er. No. But it is pretty fun.
Permalink Cindy scribed this at 3:04 PM
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