Reply #25: I used to be concerned with whether a movie star can act [View All]

[stinkeefresh]

but as my film studies have progressed I've come to understand some things about the art of film that are pretty interesting, and I don't care as much.

Much like the stock characters of old Italian Comedia, or even the greek heroes and gods that populated the earliest dramas, Movie Stars have value as story icons. I know this sounds a bit weird, but as it turns out Movie Stars tend to become popular based on what their personas represent in our cuture.

A great example is Katherine Hepburn, who represented something that people really responded to. She was a marvelous actor, but that didn't have as much to do with her popularity as the real human characteristics that she represented for the audience- something that was going on in society. (If you doubt me, see her play a ditz in 1935's Alice Adams. It will make your skin crawl to watch her play dumb.)

What's really fantastic is when a director uses what the audience expects from a certain "name" and subverts or leverages it in a meaningful way.

Take Jack Nicholson, whoe represents "crazy with a heart of gold" and see how Kubrick uses that expectation brilliantly in The Shining.

Or later when the same director cast Tom and Nicole in Eyes Wide Shut- everything you might know or expect from that couple is twisted or probed by that film.

Watch how Hitchcock uses Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much- brilliant use of what these actors represent.

Anyway, my film-nerd point is that in many ways "good" acting is not always necessary to good story-telling, as long as what the actor "means" to the audience is utilized well by the film.