Written by Cherrelle Rand
Photo from aceshowbiz.com
On Wednesday afternoon, the Clarence Thomas Center for Historic Preservation hosted a lecture given by cinema studies scholar James Naremore. He’s the author of nine books, including “Filmguide to Psycho,” “The Magic World of Orson Welles” and “Acting in the Cinema.” He has also written dozens of essays on film criticism and theory.
He opened with an explanation about his bandaged hand, raising it for everyone to see, and how people kept trying to shake it despite it being injured. He gained a few laughs. The room mainly consisted of cinema studies, film and television, and performing arts majors; they filled the chapel’s seats waiting for the lecture to start.
In his lecture, entitled “Film Acting and the Arts of Imitation,” he argued that in the United States acting has been regarded as an expressive art and that it’s just as much, if not more, an art of imitation. Imitation is not considered valuable to most audiences. Naremore, however, sees it as a form of art and feels that it is an important part of effective characterization and the formation of personality to screen.
Naremore explained, using film stills from “All About Eve,” “Being Julia” and a few others, that actors imitated a variety of things in different ways.
He referenced the wonderful Meryl Streep, who is known for her portrayal of a wide variety of characters. She portrays Julia Child in “Julie and Julia,” a film that contains two intertwining stories. One is about Julia Child’s start as a cooking professional and the other about a blogger, Julie Powell, and her challenge to cook all the recipes in Child’s first book.
He views the portrayal as being effective; he feels that there was no lack of harmony between Child and Streep.
The talk brought out a few laughs from time to time, such as when he showed the poster for the 2011 film “Hitchcock,” starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren. The poster caption read, “Behind every psycho is a great woman.”
The overall tone of the lecture, though, was bit a dry. He was not as engaged with the audience as one would have liked. He read more off his sheet of paper, only lifting his head to take a glimpse at the audience or to click the button to go to the next slide on the PowerPoint.
If a longer look were taken, he would have noticed that this caused him lose a bit of the audience. Some were a little restless — moving in their seats, shaking their legs as if it would make the lecture go faster, sketching in their notebooks or staring up at the chapel’s ceiling.
It was only when the question and answers began that Naremore seemed to relax a bit. But unlike the lecture, that part was short-lived.
