BY RICHARD BRODY | THE NEW YORKER
In theatre, an actor gives; in movies, an actor is taken from. There’s an aspect of movie performance that both precedes and transcends all technique; there’s no such thing as finding a stage star at the counter of Schwab’s Pharmacy. If the camera doesn’t love you, no amount of technique will put you over, and many an actor whom the camera does love has made an admirable career with scant technique. Thus the sense of being not in possession of a gift but being possessed by it, feeling oneself to be the passive vessel of grace. Under such circumstances, it’s understandable that some actors look for agency elsewhere; for some, in politics or activism; for others, in taking control of the camera.
