Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Overview of the Day
9.00 – 9.45
Registration (Bob Kayley Foyer)
9.45 – 11.30
Welcome!
(Ceri Hovland and Lucy Fife Donaldson)
A Question of Style: The relationship between form and performance
(Professor Victor Perkins, Ronan Paterson, Dr Sarah Thomas)
Chair:
11.30 – 11.50
Coffee
11.50 – 13.20
Keynote Address – Living Meaning: The Fluidity of Film Performance
(Dr Andrew Klevan)
Chair:
13.20 – 14.10
Lunch (Studio 1)
14.10 – 16.20
Intepreting Performance
(Professor Martin Barker, Dr Alex Clayton)
Short break
Performing Interpretation
(Adam Ganz, Professor John Adams)
Chair:
16.20 – 16.45
Coffee/Tea (Studio 1)
16.45 – 18.15
Acting In? Acting Out?
(Dr Kathrina Glitre, David Morrison, Dr Steven Peacock)
Chair:
18.15 – 19.00
Wine Reception (Studio 1)
19.00 
Close / Travel to Reading for Post-conference Meal
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Welcome and Session One
A Question of Style:
The relationship between form and
performance
Chair:
Time: 9.45 – 11.30
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
The Eloquence of Bad Acting
Professor V. F. Perkins
Two films by Jean Renoir, La Règle du jeu and The River, and Otto Preminger’s
River of No Return present instances where the actors’ calculation of moves and gestures is
visible at moments when their characters are offered as behaving spontaneously. Moments
like these disturb the expected balance between our background awareness of performance
and our concentration upon characters in developing situations. But such disturbances may
contribute positively to the overall texture of a performance or a movie. (Vertigo? Bonjour
Tristesse?)
V.F.Perkins has written and taught about film for more than forty years, from 1978 at
Warwick University. Since Film as Film (1972) he has taken care not to publish too much. He
wrote the volume on The Magnificent Ambersons for BFI Film Classics and work continues
on La Règle du jeu for the same series.
A Little Touch of Harry in the Night
An exploration of the contrasting acting styles of Laurence Olivier and Kenneth
Branagh in their respective films of Shakespeare’s Henry V.
Ronan Paterson
Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh have dominated the screen presentations of
William Shakespeare’s plays in their respective eras. Both, as directors, began their
exploration through Henry V, and both played the leading roles as well as directing. The two
films were made in very different eras, under different circumstances and for different
purposes, but what of the contrasts, not merely in interpretation, but in acting style?
Henry V comes from the theatre. In order to create it as a film, certain theatrical
conventions inherent in the writing have to be dealt with, and a style of performance,
rhetorical and language-based, has to be accommodated within the frame of a medium with
a dominant tradition of naturalistic acting. The two actor/directors approach the problems in
markedly contrasting styles. The paper examines areas of comparison and contrast, and
raises questions as to the effectiveness of the two stylistic approaches, looking at the
techniques, both cinematic and acting, employed in the creation of the performances.
Ronan Paterson has been a professional actor, director, writer and producer for
more than 35 years, working for theatre, film and television companies all over the UK and
Ireland. He has taught in theatre and media departments in Universities, colleges and
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
conservatoires, including the University of Winchester, Bath Spa, Queen Margaret’s,
Edinburgh, Newcastle College, North Tyneside College and others, and is currently Head of
Performing Arts at the University of Teesside. He has recently edited Stages of
Transformation for the University of Northumbria Press, and is currently writing a book about
different performance interpretations of Shakespeare in theatre and film.
The return of the 'repressive': producing and consuming contrasting modes of
performance in Classical Hollywood cinema and The Best Years of Our Lives.
Dr. Sarah Thomas
The growing scholarship on screen performance has enabled us to move beyond
broad statements about acting in Hollywood's Classical era. Individual analyses of actors and
texts, the roles played by various filmmaking personnel in forming coherent strategies of
screen performance, and identifying techniques appropriate to leading and supporting
performances have demonstrated the complex construction of 'classical' screen acting.
However, even these wide boundaries can exclude certain factors. Form and performance
are not necessary complementary. One text can support a range of performative styles not
easily defined as 'leading' or 'supporting' acting. Furthermore, these factors can be present in
the construction of outwardly similar leading roles. Subtle differences found within screen
performances can dramatically alter how otherwise comparable characters are constructed
during a film's production and reception.
The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946) is reliant upon contrasting modes of
performance in three analogous roles - three servicemen who return home after WWII. Two
of these performances have been widely acknowledged as noteworthy: Fredric March's
'ostensive overplaying' and Harold Russell's 'authentic' yet 'amateur' performance. The third
performance - Dana Andrews's contained and repressive 'underplaying' - has largely been
ignored. This paper will explore how the film supports these three modes of performance. I
will also suggest that ignorance of Andrews's performance is indicative of wider difficulties in
addressing underplayed or repressive screen acting. As such, I will examine the relationship
between screen performance, production and reception. This will be done by examining
Andrews's performance in relation to the formal techniques used by Wyler which work with
and against the actor. This often incoherent relationship between form and performance has
been reflected in the film's critical reputation which highlights the imbalance between the
three main roles. However, it also begs the question, is the perceived imbalance due to an
inability to successfully 'read' this type of repressive underplaying?
Dr. Sarah Thomas is Lecturer in Film Studies in the Department of Theatre, Film and
Television Studies at Aberystwyth University. Her primary research interests are Hollywood
cinema, screen performance theory and the labour position of the actor within film history.
She teaches Classical Hollywood Cinema, screen performance and stardom, and has
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
recently completed her doctoral thesis, "Face-Maker": the negotiation between screen
performance, extra-filmic persona and conditions of employment within the career of Peter
Lorre".
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Session Two
Keynote Address:
Dr Andrew Klevan
Chair:
Time: 11.50 – 13.20
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Living Meaning: The Fluidity of Film Performance
Dr Andrew Klevan
The paper will focus on the achievement of fluidity in Hollywood performance – the
fluid movement of the body – and the way in which, by refusing a definite form, performers
ensure that meaning is difficult to isolate or crystallise. By examining the work of Greta
Garbo, James Stewart, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, the paper will show how
performers keep meaning moving: meanings flow into one another, overlap, adjust and
transform before our eyes. Interpretative insecurity is a matter of concern in relation to all the
arts, but it is especially relevant, or fundamental, to those arts that move in time and/or
space. Studying film performers is particularly illuminating in this regard, because they are
not only moving in time and space, but they are living beings – alive with meaning and alive
to meaning.
Dr Andrew Klevan is University Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Oxford
and a Fellow of St. Anne’s College. His areas of interest are the history and theory of film
criticism, film interpretation, and film aesthetics. He is author of Disclosure of the Everyday:
Undramatic Achievement in Film (2000) and Film Performance: from Achievement to
Appreciation (2005).
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Session Three
Interpreting Performance
&
Performing Interpretation
Chair:
Time: 14.10– 16.20
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
How do audiences evaluate acting on screen?
Suspects
A case study using The Usual
Professor Martin Barker
Among all the work emerging from the recent welcome resurgence of interest in
screen acting, there is a notable absence: any direct exploration of film audiences, and of the
role that attention to acting may play within their understanding and appreciation of a film.
This is despite the steady general growth in film audience research. One of the reasons for
this, I suspect, may be that the task is methodologically quite exacting, and that poses a
challenge which I have been trying to meet. Over the past few months, with colleagues at
Aberystwyth, I have been developing the first stage of a (hopefully eventually larger) project
to open up this field. In the first instance this is via a screening at Aberystwyth Arts Centre
on November 28th of the film The Usual Suspects. We have been recruiting people with a
range of different levels of knowledge of, and interest in, the film, with the aim of drawing out
(by a combination of questionnaires and discussion groups) the languages that different
kinds of audiences deploy to describe and evaluate one key scene (the line-up), thereby to
explore how these associate with wider ways of anticipating, understanding and evaluating
the film, and to begin to see how the languages used on one particular film may connect with
wider lexicons and systems of understanding and appreciation of films.
Martin Barker is Professor of Film & Television Studies at Aberystwyth University.
His research interests have spanned many areas and many years, but in the last twenty
years he has particularly focused on the development of the methods and tasks of audience
research. Most recently he directed the international Lord of the Rings research project,
looking at the meanings of fantasy for audiences across the world, and undertook contracted
research for the BBFC into audience responses to screened sexual violence. His interest in
acting arose out of realising simply that questions about audience responses had not yet
been asked.
Acting to Save the World (Fuck Yeah): Team America, Comedy and Performance
Alex Clayton
Team America: World Police (Trey Parker, 2004) may seem an unlikely starting point
for a conceptual investigation of performance. Nonetheless, this puppet-based parody of the
action genre offers, besides puerile, scatological fun and a sharp satire of contemporary
world affairs, a vivid meditation on the nature of acting – in the double sense of ‘performing’
and ‘intervening’. Prompted by this dimension of the film, and by its distinctive combination of
puppetry and spoof, this paper will explore questions pertaining to comedy, performance and
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
the body. How does acting relate to doing? Do puppets act? Why are the strings so visible?
And why is Kim Jong Il so very ronery?
Alex Clayton is Lecturer in Screen Studies at the University of Bristol. He is the
author of The Body in Hollywood Slapstick (McFarland: Jefferson, North Carolina and
London, 2007).
Re-producing screen performance
John Adams
This presentation is an early report on work in progress on a practice-led research
project into structures and dynamics of screen performance. ‘Performance’ here is a layered
terms that connects and moves between concepts of inferred agency and role,
understandings of player and enactment (what the actor does), and elements of enactment
mediated through the lens of film form and convention. Conceptually, the work will be located
with reference to a neo-phenomenological position with filmic origins in the practice of JeanLuc Godard and drawing on the work of contemporary thinkers such as Graham Harman.
This approach aims to operate beyond the realm of linguistic discourse analysis in film
studies, rejecting a prime focus on meaning; it seeks rather to develop audio-visual
explorations of performance that uncover and / or suggest new relations within and between
elements hitherto confined or repressed by conventional categories. The practice research
(starting in Feb 2009) develops through scaleable workshops with small inter-disciplinary
groups of academic researchers and creative audio-visual and performance practitioners.
Taking loose thematic provocations (e.g. surfaces, timing, borders) the workshops generate
original material, cite and re-work archive film, engage with critical positions, and use audiovisual material from media sources in all forms as contextual points of reference. The
eventual outcomes will be presented in a range of audio-visual forms.
John Adams is Professor of Film & Screen Media Practice in the Drama Department
at the University of Bristol. He has a special interest in practice-based approaches to
teaching and research in screen media, and was the founding editor of the Journal of Media
Practice from 2000-06. Recent research includes a practice-based, inter-disciplinary project
on 'expanded cinema' (funded by a major grant from the AHRC) and writings on aspects of
place and space in early film. He is currently a developing a practice-based exploration of
screen performance concepts. He has produced and/or directed over 30 broadcast films and
theatre productions, and co-founded and chaired both the Watershed Media Centre (Bristol)
and the production company Watershed Television Ltd.
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Interpreting oneself – performance, feedback, and the digital
Adam Ganz
I look at how digital technology is changing the nature of performance, as inferences
and interpretations about the meanings of performance are being made by performers as
they make their work. There is a level of conscious feedback, which is no longer the sole
territory of the director.
In our article Lina Khatib and I traced this back to the development of the video assist
and how “…the elision of the boundaries between the space in front and behind the camera
means that the actors participate in the making of the film in a different way.”
In both film and TV performances are beginning to include “found objects” of
performance, “real” activities captured on camera - Increasingly performances are comprised
of a collage of the “real”, (that’s to say the purely observed and recorded) with the
consciously “performed”. This synthesis of “behaviour” and “performance”, with the
opportunity for the performers to modify either or both of these in response to analysis
(including their own) is the distinguishing feature of digital performance and one which is
transforming the role and status of performers as co-collaborators.
I look at Ivan’s XTC (the first High Definition digital feature), as a key text marking that
shift, in which the three lead performers Peter Weller (actor,) Lisa Enos (editor and producer)
and Danny Huston, (director) are experienced in making those inferences and interpretations
about the work of other performers - and themselves.
Adam Ganz is a writer/director and Lecturer in media Arts at Royal Holloway
University of London. He studied at Cambridge and Bristol Universities and at the National
Film and Television School. Before working at Royal Holloway he taught aspects of
screenwriting, directing and narrative design at the Royal College of Art, the University of
Northumbria, London Metropolitan University, and the University of East London amongst
others. He has written screenplays for several production companies including Granada
Television, the BBC, Redwave Films, Kismet Films, APT Films, Granada, and IWC Media.
He has directed several short films, which have been shown at festivals around the world
and on Channel 4 and Sky television. He has also worked as a script consultant for a number
of companies including the BBC, Complicité and Working Title, and as a narrative consultant
on several large multimedia projects. He has research interests in digital cinema, narrative
and visualisation and have written an article (co-authored with Lina Khatib) (2006). "Digital
Cinema: The Transformation of Film Practice and Aesthetics". In New Cinemas: Journal of
Contemporary Film, volume 4, issue 1, pp. 21-36. "Cause Trouble! Inspire Change! Do it
First" - Writing Series Drama for Channel 4 was In the Journal of Media Practice volume 8,
issue 3, pp 273-288 A version of which was given at the BFI Conference on Channel 4.
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Session Four
Acting In?
Chair:
Time: 16.45 – 18.15
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Still acting: Doing nothing as an acting choice
Dr. Kathrina Glitre
Film theory has often argued that the affect of film performance is constructed by
montage and mise-en-scène, as much as by the actor’s craft. While critical of this tradition,
Richard Dyer nonetheless suggests that the final shot of Queen Christina (1933) exemplifies
its possibilities:
Much can be read into this shot – of resignation, melancholy, profound feeling. Yet it
is well known that the director, Rouben Mamoulian, told Garbo to do nothing for this scene,
and she did as she was told. (In itself, one should say, a considerable feat of performance.)
The meaning of her face in this shot thus derives entirely from its place in the film’s narrative,
the way it is shot, and the resonances of Garbo’s image carried by her face. (Stars, 1979:
163)
While Dyer at least recognizes the difficulty of delivering such a performance, I would
dispute his conclusion: it does not necessarily follow that ‘doing nothing’ means nothing. A
film-making choice has been made and we can infer meaning through stillness, as much as
through movement and expression: Garbo is still acting.
This paper explores this moment and two others, from North by Northwest (1959) and
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), in order to establish a range of ways in which
‘doing nothing’ can be understood as an acting choice that creates meaning and affect.
Dr. Kathrina Glitre is the author of Hollywood Romantic Comedy: States of the
Union, 1934-65 (2006) and co-editor, with my colleagues, Mark Bould and Greg Tuck, of
Neo-Noir (forthcoming). I am currently completing an AHRC-funded project on film acting,
Starring Cary Grant, for the Close-Up series.
Performing Loneliness
David Morrison
The emotion of loneliness is present in a wide variety of films, and is often conveyed
by performance in combination with other formal means. But how exactly is loneliness
conveyed through performance, and why do we feel or assume this emotion when it is
performed? To answer these questions it is useful to look at common performance signs
relating to loneliness (such as the ‘downward gaze’), at particular qualities of a lonely
performance (such as blankness or stillness), and to examine certain vocal tendencies
(whether a tendency towards monotone expression or even silence). These elements are
often inter-linked, acting in conjunction throughout a performance to signify loneliness, and it
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
is important to realise that they all appear to be ways of communicating a sense of noncommunication. Investigating loneliness in relation to performance is not simply a matter of
recognising lonely gestures and traits, however, but is also a question of asking why these
elements appear lonely to the viewer, despite an often fairly restrained use of emotional cues
with which to convey meaning. This paper will attempt to shed light on why we might infer
loneliness from the above signs, qualities and tendencies, employing particular examples
from Jacques Audiard’s Read My Lips (2001), and Aki Kaurismäki’s Lights In The Dusk
(2006). The paper will also draw on Bela Balázs’ concept of the ‘silent soliloquy’ and James
Naremore’s notion of ‘expressive incoherence’ to demonstrate how loneliness can be
exposed through performance even when a character is not performing alone, since
frequently it is the case that characters will appear most lonely when performing opposite
others. It is hoped that this paper will contribute to questions of how performance conveys
feeling, but also how feeling is integral to the idea of experiencing performance.
David Morrison is a final year PhD student at King’s College, London. His current
research investigates the construction and representation of the feeling of loneliness in film,
with particular emphasis on how film creates emotional affect through the employment of
specific tropes and devices. He has taught on a variety of modules at King’s in the
Department of Film Studies, and has contributed a number of articles to the BFI’s
screenonline website. His research interests include Spanish cinema, and the study of
aesthetics and emotion in film. Before pursuing an academic career David worked in both
music and film distribution.
David Lynch, Laura Dern, and Crying on Film
Dr. Steven Peacock
This paper considers the close relationship of one director and performer in acting out
instances of 'crying'. It takes the three performances offered by Laura Dern in the films
directed by David Lynch as a triptych: a trio of stark portraits featuring a woman in tears.
Concentration on this pattern of cruel fascination allows for questions to emerge about
Lynch's handling of Dern, the actor's tearful performances, and of crying on film.
Steven Peacock is Senior Lecturer in Film at the University of Hertfordshire. He is
the author of ‘Colour in Film’ (Manchester University Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of
‘The Television Series’ (Manchester University Press). He has written extensively on film and
television aesthetics.
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Acknowledgements
Ceri and Lucy would like to thank everyone who helped make today possible with particular
thanks to the department for allowing us
Rosemary Allen, Chris Bacon, Simone Knox, Liz Silvester
Andrew Klevan
Jonathan Bignell, Mark Broughton, John Bull, Alison Butler, John Gibbs, Lisa Purse, Doug
Pye, Mike Stevenson, Lib Taylor,
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
Email Addresses
1. Name
2. John Adams
3. Martin Barker
4. Jonathan Bignell
5. Sergio Dias Branco
6. Sophie Brown
7. Tom Brown
8. Alex Clayton
9. Patricia Di Risio
10. Lucy Fife
Donaldson
11. Hannah Durkin
12. David Foster
13. Adam Ganz
14. John Gibbs
15. Kathrina Glitre
16. Liz Greene
17. Ceri Hovland
18. Joe Kember
19. Andrew Klevan
20. Jacob Leigh
21. Katherine Limmer
22. Reina-Marie
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Institution
University of Bristol
Aberystwyth
University
University of
Reading
University of Kent
University of Oxford
University of
Reading
University of Bristol
University of
Melbourne
University of
Reading
University of
Nottingham
University of
Reading
Royal Holloway,
University of
London
University of
Reading
University of the
West of England
York St. John
University
University of
Reading
University of Exeter
St. Anne’s College,
University of Oxford
Royal Holloway,
University of
London
University of Exeter
University of
Reading
Email
john.adams@bristol.ac.uk
mib@aber.ac.uk
j.bignell@reading.ac.uk
s.e.dias-branco@kent.ac.uk
sophiealicebrown@gmail.com
Tom.brown@reading.ac.uk
A.clayton@bristol.ac.uk
p.dirisio@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
l.fife@reading.ac.uk
aaxhkd1@nottingham.ac.uk
d.foster@reading.ac.uk
Adam.Ganz@rhul.ac.uk
john.gibbs@reading.ac.uk
Kathrina.Glitre@uwe.ac.uk
l.greene@yorksj.ac.uk
cahovland@btclick.com
j.e.kember@ex.ac.uk
andrew.klevan@st-annes.ox.ac.uk
jacob.leigh@rhul.ac.uk
katy.limmer@yeovil.ac.uk
reinamarie.loader@mac.com
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Acting Out: Screen Performance, Inference and Interpretation
23. Alan Lovell
24. Victoria Lowe
25. James MacDowell
26. Michael Morgan
27. Douglas Morrey
28. David Morrison
29. Ruth O’Donnell
30. Ronan Paterson
31. Steven Peacock
32. V.F. Perkins
33. Lisa Purse
34. Sarah Ralph
35. Heather
Sutherland
36. Sarah Thomas
37. Tim Vermeulen
Independent Scholar
University of
Manchester
University of
Warwick
Central School of
Speech and Drama
University of
Warwick
King’s College
London
Royal Holloway,
University of
London
University of
Teesside
University of
Hertfordshire
University of
Warwick
University of
Reading
Aberystwyth
University
University of
Reading
Aberystwyth
University
University of
Reading
alovell730@aol.com
Victoria.s.lowe@manchester.ac.uk
j.b.macdowell@gmail.com
Michaelandrewmorgan@yahoo.co.uk
D.J.Morrey@warwick.ac.uk
david.morrison@kcl.ac.uk
caledoniangal@yahoo.co.uk
R.paterson@tees.ac.uk
s.peacock@herts.ac.uk
v.f.perkins@warwick.ac.uk
l.v.purse@reading.ac.uk
ser05@aber.ac.uk
h.a.sutherland@reading.ac.uk
skt@aber.ac.uk
tjvvermeulen@gmail.com
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