Global Film Emperor

Chapter 483 Lu Ze, how many actors are you going to ruin?
"The essence of film and television performance is still action, a process of action that unifies psychology and form, a reaction that is appropriate to the scene in conjunction with the current situation or language, and the most appropriate grasp of the situation by the nervous system in coordination with the muscles. It encompasses action, feeling, and intuition, and becomes a subconscious physical expression."

"Therefore, performance can be called the art of movement. It is based on theory and lays the foundation for practice. So the theory should be easy to understand and popular, rather than mysterious and difficult to understand."

"Nowadays, most people have made some adjustments to the essence of performance, emphasizing feeling and calling feeling the foundation of performance. This adjustment often emphasizes the occurrence of feeling and intuitive phenomena in performance, but it often leads to actors not being able to find the feeling. Or, in other words, the accompanying actions in the performance will generate strong feelings. If the performance is supported by feeling alone, it cannot encompass the wholeness of film and television performance."

"The character's actions and emotions come alive in the actor. That is to say, the actor and the role need to be very well integrated and unified. While deepening their understanding of their own movement characteristics, recognizing and adjusting them, they also need to accurately analyze the role they are playing. What is the character's tone, what is the character's core, and what are the character's movement characteristics? Only in this way can the character in the literary work be successfully brought back to life on the stage or screen, and the actor can embody the living person with their own body and mind, achieving the goal of the character possessing them and becoming one with them."

……

The book turned another page, and the fresh scent of ink filled his nostrils, making him feel refreshed and relaxed. He let out a long sigh, picked up his water glass, took a sip, held it in his mouth for a few seconds, and then swallowed it in three gulps.

His concentration was broken, and he subconsciously picked up the book, wondering how many pages he had already read and how much longer he could enjoy the pleasure that books brought him.

The book is good; it provides the professor's answers. For now, it doesn't offer much new information, as most of the theories have already been mentioned and are not fresh. However, as an old-school performer, he agrees with the theory that movement is the foundation of performing arts and scoffs at the theory that feeling is the foundation of performance. Therefore, this book pleases him, and he recognizes Lu Ze as a kindred spirit, feeling a sense of mutual appreciation.

"not bad."

He held the book between the top left and right corners of the open book between his index and middle fingers, encouraging himself with a few words. He still had the interest to keep reading, even though he knew that Lu Ze was not from an academic background.

In the past, he was never interested in the new concepts mentioned in the performance books published by self-taught actors. After all, the reason why self-taught actors are called self-taught is because of their uniqueness. It may be suitable for a certain self-taught actor, but it is not suitable for most performance practitioners, so it is of little reference value.

I continued flipping through the pages for less than fifteen minutes, but when I turned the page again, it was completely blank. The basic theory of the first chapter had been explained, and the next chapter was the second chapter, which was the unit that the professor was most interested in: Practice.

Any actor would be interested in Lu Ze's acting training methods, after all, he is incredibly strong and perfect in every aspect, as evidenced by the numerous awards he has received.

This is something many people envy, and it also makes them curious about what kind of training methods could create such a monster. If they could learn something from it, would their own performance skills improve by one or even several levels?
This is the most genuine thought of most readers who bought Lu Ze's books. The professor, however, did not share this view. But to say that he was not interested in Lu Ze's training methods was simply a joke. So, with a strange sense of anticipation, he turned to a new page, only to find that this chapter was written differently from the first chapter, and was recorded in the form of a diary.

……

"After returning from the set of 'My Chief and My Regiment,' I wasn't in a good mood. During filming, the director rejected my acting ideas. Naturally, I had a mental battle with the director for a while, but I lost in the end because he was the director."

"I always believed that my approach was correct, but after returning to the hotel and rehearsing on my own, I discovered a problem. In some details, the director was also correct to a certain extent, which is why I was uneasy."

"As the aesthetician Plekhanov said: Art not only reveals people's emotions but also expresses their thoughts. However, it does not express them in an abstract way but in a vivid way. This is the most important characteristic of art."

"Art begins with a person rekindling the emotions and thoughts he has experienced under the influence of the surrounding reality in his own heart, and giving them a certain image. The purpose of a person doing this is to convey to others what he has repeatedly thought about and felt. Performance is the expression of an artistic phenomenon."

"So I decided that I needed to re-understand the characters I was playing. It wouldn't be enough to just use the skills I had. Only by having a detailed and profound observation and understanding of people from all walks of life could I experience whether the characters in the works were real. So I started by studying the historical background of the characters."

"Then, I combined the character's lines in the script to understand his thoughts and feelings. In the end, what I had to do was to replicate a living person in my mind. He didn't have to be called the character's name. I even named him Lu Ze, which is my name. He would become my friend, at least when I needed him."

……

Is that even possible?

From that moment on, the professor finally understood why Camilla had said that readers would experience both confusion and understanding. The devil, truly the devil…

He clearly created another version of himself in his mind, and needed this person to be with him day and night, even letting this other self take control of the situation when filming.

"Isn't this cultivating mental illness?"

This is not the most taboo practice method in acting majors, because they have never heard of any outstanding actor training their acting skills in this way.

But in the near future, the professor believes this will become the most taboo practice method in acting, because someone has proposed this method and claimed to have succeeded. It is said that the method acting approach is somewhat dangerous, as it can lead to excessive immersion in the character's inner world, potentially causing one to remain trapped in the character's emotions for a long time, such as falling in love with someone the character loves, or becoming depressed because of the character's experiences.

But compared to this approach, the experiential approach is too mild. Creating a new self in one's mind, or even surrendering one's body to another self, is a pipe dream. Can such a method produce a good performance? The professor isn't sure, but he's certain it can produce a madman.

Just now, his sense of identification with Lu Ze, who was also an old-school performer, was suddenly shattered. However, because of his amiable nature, he found it difficult to criticize Lu Ze immediately. He just kept asking himself, "Is this possible?"
Since the professor often takes a nap in his office, there is naturally a mirror in the office for grooming. At this moment, he was sitting on the left side of the mirror. After seeing Lu Ze's practice method, he subconsciously glanced at the mirror and tried to feel it... He has a friend named Romeo, and he accepts this person named Romeo entering his body.

"Get lost!"

Cold sweat quickly soaked through his shirt, and a chilling feeling lingered in his heart, reminding him of that terrifying psychological experiment where he had to repeat "Who are you?" ten times in front of the mirror when he woke up in the morning.

For a brief moment, he also had the illusion that he couldn't recognize who he was, and then strangely discovered that he seemed to dislike Romeo, even though he had played Romeo for nearly twenty years.

"madman."

Perhaps he was cursing Lu Ze, or perhaps he was cursing himself; in any case, he didn't want to continue reading this bizarre book. To hell with it, that was the professor's truest thought.

He closed the performance textbook, which he considered cult classic, and placed it on the top shelf. He was about to go home... no, before going home, he definitely needed to go to a nice bar for a couple of drinks to calm down.

"Professor, where are you going?"

At the entrance of the office building, he saw Linda again. She was carrying a stack of books, and the one on the outside was the book that gave him nightmares at night: "Acting, My Life".

"I'm home. I don't have any classes this afternoon. Did I just finish class?"

"Okay, goodbye then, Professor."

"Wait……"

"What's wrong?"

"Uh... I can answer the question you asked me at noon now, about this book..."

He pointed to the books Linda was clutching tightly, organized his thoughts, and then spoke again.

"I don't recommend you watch it. Of course, you can watch it, but don't learn from it. Promise me, OK?"

"Okay, then I'll listen to you, Professor."

"Goodbye."

Seeing Linda's surprised expression, the professor could swear that the more he said this, the more curious Linda would become, but this was beyond his control. He could only hope that Linda would realize as soon as possible that there was a big pit in this book and not be foolish enough to jump into it.

"Lu Ze, you madman, how many talented actors are you going to ruin?"

He cursed inwardly as he got into the car, slammed on the gas, and drove much faster than when he had just bought the books.

"..."

(End of this chapter)