Posted on 07/16/2017 7:53:15 AM PDT by rktman
Clint Eastwood has done it all. Literally.
Acting legend? Check? Oscar glory? Multiple checks. Singer-songwriter? Yup. He even co-starred with an orangutan. Twice. And it didn't kill his career.
But can he turn a trio of heroic young men into ... actors?
Eastwood's next directorial project tells the true story of three men who thwarted a terrorist attack on a moving train. "The 15:17 to Paris" will star real-life heroes Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone. The trio will play themselves, recreating how they stopped a terrorist armed with an AK-47 on a train bound for Paris.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Why couldn’t a good director get a great film out of these guys? Wasn’t the sergeant in Full Metal Jacket a real sergeant?
I don’t care if any of these guys can act, as long as he doesn’t use Morgan Freeman.
A man’s got to know his limitations. Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry
He likely knows all about the greed and callousness of evil corporations working for the likes of:
Columbia Pictures, Orion Pictures, 20th Century Fox, TriStar Pictures, Universal Studios, and Paramount Pictures.
Opps wrong thread. Admin feel free to delete this.
Because acting is such a -difficult- thing to learn. /s
The truth is, a director like Eastwood, Spielberg, Siegel, Howard, Ford, Huston, Scorsese could take any reasonably sane person, and have them display whatever he wishes for them to. The proof of this is how many real people played cameos in numerous Hollywood movies.
This is child’s play for a high end director.
Yeah, with another director it would probably be Freeman, Hanks, and DeNiro even if they’re playing young men.
Boo to the Hollywood powers that be!
“This is child’s play for a high end director.”
I might have agreed before I heard from SteveH on a related thread.
Thank you SteveH.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3568485/posts
Clint Eastwood Casts Real-Life Heroes in Next Film ‘The 15:17 to Paris’
7/11/2017, 11:51:44 PM · 23 of 26
SteveH to DUMBGRUNT
Bad acting is something that is usually very prominent to movie viewers. Basically the actor will do and/or say things that seem unnatural. In fact it *is* unnatural for a person to appear in front of a camera and act a part for a director and his movie crew. So, most people can not do it well.
I directed a small film once and so although that in no way qualifies me as any expert, I would like to think that I do have more insight than average. Anyone who has done any film directing will be sensitive to the plight of a director who has to work with the people that he situated with using— sometimes in contrast to actors with great acting talent and training.
Sometimes (though not usually) bad acting can be overcome by changing the script, or editing. It can in theory work both ways since sometimes people bring new and unexpected talents to the process of making a film, and occasionally one can change the filming to incorporate those talents.
There are multiple levels of acting. I am no expert and my impression is that there are shades of ability that I cannot discern, but others can. So, I am just writing about the most basic levels here— the stuff that should be obvious to just about any film viewer.
Yes, I also hope that it goes well. Those guys are probably already getting intensive acting tutelage. Again, acting for action movies IMHO should be easier than the norm for all of the acting skills with the exception of physical stunts.
Before one judges acting in a film, one also needs to be able to distinguish between bad acting, and bad scripts, bad directing, bad editing and bad producing. So, sometimes an actor can look bad in a film, but it is nominally not his or her fault. This highlights the advisability for actors and their agents to choose film projects carefully, if they have a choice at all. Good acting alone does guarantee anything.
If you have directed, then watching a film becomes a completely different experience than if you have not directed, because a director operates as a general manager and is generally aware of all the different aspects of filmmaking which have to come together in order to make the film look good to the intended audience. For each scene in a film, a director can therefore evaluate it on the basis of the total effort which he knows that scene is likely to take from the film crew (stunt crew, special effects crew, makeup crew, costume designers, location scouts, actors, casting, sets, lighting, photography, etc.) as well as the money and time budgets for each scene, and the editing and music scoring. For modern state of the art filmmaking— for stuff to look “normal” to the average filmgoer— there are numerous small details such as the time involved in getting permits, script adjustments, re-takes, post-takes, overdubbing, and so on. Then there are the human challenges of interfacing effectively with all the different departments without going crazy and without working so hard that one loses one’s health— in low budget films, many times the director can end up being the resource of last resort, has to roll up his or her sleeves, and step in and do whatever needs to be done himself or herself, in order to save the film from total disaster. A lot of hard work goes into making a film and most average filmgoers only see the final product, knowing little or nothing about how much effort it takes to make something look effortless and natural.
Beyond this, directors often have to make very difficult decisions, starting with picking cast and crew, scripting and scoring, and ending with editing. In between, and sometimes before and after, there can be a tug of war for control over artistic direction, that is, both overt and covert challenges to a director’s nominal authority. At the extreme, this can lead to the resignation or firing of a director, or openly ignoring his direction by a crew during filming. All of these situations make being a director in real life much different from how it is portrayed in legend. It can lead to counterintuitive results— for example, a director who is a “nice guy” runs a risk of getting walked over by the cast, whereas an autocratic @$$hat who is despised by his cast and crew can often result in a superior film.
There are also a small number of “gotcha” items that need the director’s attention— weather (if outdoor filming is involved), copyright acquisition (if applicable), even catering (if on location), and so on. These may not seem that important, but lack of attention to any of them could fairly easily sink a film, and not all of them are adequately covered in filmmaking books and courses.
Not everyone is cut out to be a director. It is very challenging. This is why anyone who consistently directs good films (such as Eastwood, and there are many other examples of course) deserves all the respect he or she is given.
Even so, the buck stops with the producers who fund the filming and exert executive control. The director reports to the producers and if the producers have unrealistic expectations, such as an “A” level movie with a “B” level budget, or (for another example) they micromanage the film at the director level, overriding his decisions, then the producers, and not necessarily the director, may ultimately be responsible for a film failing to achieve its original goals.
Anyway, hopefully this gives you some background on the complexity of the acting process in the larger context of the filmmaking process. In general, it tends to be a large team effort and requires considerable management, human resources, and finance skills as well as artistic skills and old fashioned prior experience.
Again, I am certainly no expert in the field, and would happily defer to anyone with more training and experience in these matters.
It’s still child’s play for a high end director to get a performance out of a normal reasonably sane person.
The fact is that most of the “talent” as they are referred to on location, is very overblown.
There is a cult that follows actors and leads you to believe that Streep does things that nobody else could.
The fact is, it’s a relatively simple process, and most of what we attribute to the actor, comes form the director and from dozens of takes per scene.
Is De Niro really that special? Half of New York could do what he does.
Streep, she always basically plays herself.
To be sure, there are a few very good actors that are above the others. But it will be no problem at all to cast real guys and direct them. It happens all the time in films.
Anyone remember Haing Ngor who played Dith Pran in the Killing Fields? First film, academy award.
How about Harold Russell, played a returning veteran in “best years of our lives”. First film, academy award.
Both gave fantastic performances.
The DI by Jack Webb had numerous Marines as actors.
Acting as a deep skill is very overrated. Directing is very tough. When people think they are seeing acting, they are seeing directing.
I agree with you except for Tom Hardy.
I watched him in The Drop.
I still don’t believe he’s British.
Seeing these two flick with today's sensibilities was a revelation; they are an unapologetic homage to the White Working Class. Complete sympathy to the plight of the WWC is evident throughout both films.
Filmed nearly four decades ago. Just damn.
If all else fails, just CGI the damn scene. ;-)
The secret will get out that acting isn’t reserved only for the elite Hollywood types who just happened to stumble into success.
The horrors!
I was sitting in a dentist chair having my teeth cleaned about 3 weeks after this heroic event by three young soldiers on leave. The dental hygienist, a woman in her 30s was chatting away while I was gagging amd she proceeded to tell me what hero this friend of hers was for “coming out” as a proud shrieking faggot. I felt like wretching at the time and asked how that made him a hero to her and why? She said it took an incredible amount of courage. I said I didn’t consider that a heroic event but I did consider the story of these three men and the lives they saved on that train. This stupid bitch had not even read of this event.
May be he should Jim Rob for an FR lst that might help.
They’re fun movies. The haplessness of the Black Widows is laugh out loud good.
If all else fails, just CGI the damn scene.
Would that be fake real actors or real fake actors?
Just a slight touch up to the facial expression, here and there...
LOL! I’ve seen the disclaimer on some ads, I think for Chevy, were it says ‘real people, not actors’. I suppose that’s as opposed to, ‘actors, NOT real people’?
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