SCREEN-L Archives

June 1995, Week 3

SCREEN-L@LISTSERV.UA.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Donald Larsson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 19 Jun 1995 11:42:17 -0600
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (44 lines)
Jenny J writes:
"Characters may have been written as upper class,
but traditionally most performers have been anything but. Historically, you
would be hard pressed to find a man or woman from a "respectable" background
prancing about on a stage or in front of a flickering camera. This was
greatly discouraged. I recall reading about a time when actors were not
allowed a burial plot on hallowed ground.
 
However, people of extremely poor backgrounds were often capable of achieving
the highest success creating characters that reflected cultured, monied
backgrounds. Who could imagine Cary Grant any other way? Yet he was born poor
in England and joined the circus. He freely admitted that he invented and
gradually grew into that cool, suave, debonair guy we all know and love on
the screen.
 
I know there are exceptions, Grace Kelly being a notable one, but from what I
have learned about theatrical and cinematic history, this has been the
general rule."
 
In actuality, this is true.  But for at least some time, especially the silent
 era
and early sound era, there seemed to be a penchant for believing that actors
 were
of noble, high-class or at least suitably exotic "foreign" backgrounds.
 Consider
the life stories and personas that Eric von Stroheim and Josef von Sternberg
created for themselves, the Garbo mystique, and so forth.  This kind of thing
is alluded to directly by studio publicist Libby (Lionel Stander) in the
 original
A STAR IS BORN and it's deliberately mocked in Don Lockwood's "life story" at
the beginning of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN.
 
It might be interesting to see if there are any specific studies of the changing
roles of the perception of the star persona--and to place all that within the
context of Walter Benjamin's remarks about the star system as a type of "false
aura" to replace the quasi-religious "aura" lost in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction."
 
Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
 
----
To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L
in the message.  Problems?  Contact [log in to unmask]

ATOM RSS1 RSS2