Film Acting and the Arts of Imitation

Author(s): James Naremore

Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Summer 2012), pp. 34-42
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/fq.2012.65.4.34
Accessed: 13-08-2016 22:28 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Film
Quarterly

This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Film Acting and the ArtS of Imitation

James Naremore ARGUES THAT TECHNIQUES OF IMITATION ARE AT LEAST AS

IMPORTANT AS SELF-EXPRESSION

From the eighteenth until the early twentieth century the

Aristotelian concept of mimesis governed most aesthetic
theory, and stage acting was often described as an imitative
art. Denis Diderots Paradox sur le comdien (1758), for
example, argued that the best theater actors played not from
strongly felt emotion or sensibility, but from imitation.
According to Diderot, actors who depended too much upon
their emotions were prone to lose control, couldnt sum-
mon the same feelings repeatedly, and alternated between
sublime and flat performances in the same play; properly
imitative actors, on the other hand, were rational observ-
ers of human nature and social conventions who developed
imaginary models of dramatic characters and reproduced
the same nuances of behavior and colors of emotion every
Wanda. 1970 Foundation for Filmmakers. DVD: Parlour
evening. Throughout the neoclassical period, when the term Pictures.

imitation had positive connotations in all the arts, actors

on the stage were taught to imitate a vocabulary of gestures
nary circumstances and to express oneself while playing
and poses for the creation of model characters, and certain
imaginary circumstances.
variations on the theory of acting as imitation also persisted
The change of emphasis from the imitation of a model
into modern times. Brecht went so far as to argue that not
to the expression of a self is due in part to motion pictures.
only fictional characters but also everyday personalities and
Filmed performances are identical at every showing, making
emotions are developed through a process of imitation:
Diderots paradox appear irrelevant, and movie close ups
The human being copies gesture, miming, tones of voice.
can reveal the subtlest emotions, creating a sense of what
And weeping arises from sorrow, but sorrow also arises from
Richard Dyer in Stars has called interiority. But the shift
weeping. For the past seventy or eighty years, however, the
toward emotionally charged, personally expressive acting
dominant forms of actor training in the United States have
preceded the movies. The first manifestations of the change
minimized or even denied the importance of imitation and
appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century, with
the related arts of mimicry, mime, and impersonation. The
new forms of stage lighting and the appearance of Henrik
actor does not need to imitate a human being, Lee Strasberg
Ibsens psychological dramas, William Archers call for
famously declared. The actor is himself a human being
actors to live the part, and Konstantin Stanislavskys new
and can create out of himself (The Actor and Himself, in
style of introspective naturalism. By the late 1930s, when
Strasberg at the Actors Studio). More recently, the website of
Stanislavskys ideas were fully absorbed into the U.S. theater
a San Francisco acting school specializing in the Sandford
and Hollywood achieved hegemony over the worlds talking
Meisner Technique (named for a distinguished New York
pictures, dramatic acting was nearly always evaluated in
teacher of stage and screen performers) announces that the
terms of naturalness, sincerity, and emotional truth of
aspiring student will be taught to live truthfully under imagi-
expression. A kind of artistic revolution had occurred, akin
Film Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 4, pps 3442, ISSN 0015-1386, electronic, ISSN 1533-8630. 2012 by the Regents of the University of California. to the victory of romanticism over neoclassicism at the
All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss
Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/FQ.2012.65.4.34 beginning of the nineteenth century. As M. H. Abrams in

34 sum m er 2012

This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Top: Pickpocket. A Sunchild G.M.F. / M. Chanderli Production.
DVD: Artificial Eye (U.K.). Middle: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
1979 BBC. DVD: BBC Worldwide (U.K.). (Bottom) The Love
Parade. 1929 Paramount Pictures. DVD: Criterion Eclipse.
This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Mirror and the Lamp has explained about that earlier
revolution, the metaphor of art as a mirror held up to
the world was replaced by the metaphor of art as a lamp
projecting individual emotions into the world. Where acting
was concerned, imitation became associated with such
words as copy, substitute, fake, and even counterfeit.
The new forms of psychological realism, on the other hand,
were associated with such words as genuine, truthful,
organic, authentic, and real. Thus V. I. Pudovkin in
Film Technique and Film Acting championed Stanislavskys
idea that an actor striving toward truth should be able to
avoid the element of portraying his feelings to the audience,
and the Actors Studio advocated the development of private
moments and organic naturalness.
Ive already discussed some of these matters in Acting
in the Cinema (University of California Press, 1988), but I
think they deserve further consideration, keeping in mind
that both the school of psychological naturalism and the
school of classical imitation involve craft or technical skill,
and both are capable of producing good acting. Most actors
are pragmatic rather than doctrinaire, willing to use whatever
technique works in particular circumstances; and while the
technique of imitation and the technique of personal feeling
are often opposed to one another by theorists, they arent
mutually exclusive. Barbara Lodens impressive, utterly
naturalistic looking characterization in Wanda (1970) no
doubt makes use of Method-style sensory memory or even
personal depravation to create states of fatigue and hunger
(see especially the scene in which she sops up spaghetti
sauce with bread and chews with gusto while also smoking
a cigarette), but the performance also requires Loden to
accurately mimic a regional, working-class accent.
Conversely, its quite possible for pantomime artists or
actors who use conventional gestures to live the part or
project themselves into their roles. Testimony to this latter
phenomenon has been given to us by Martin LaSalle, the
leading model in Robert Bressons Pickpocket (1959).
LaSalle wasnt a professional actor at the time the picture
was made and served as a kind of puppet, executing whatever
movements and poses Bresson asked of him. His performance
in the film is minimalist, seldom changing its expressive
quality; at one point he sheds tears, but most of the time his
offscreen narration, spoken quite calmly, serves to inform
us of the intense emotions his character feels but doesnt
obviously show. And yet LaSalle creates a memorably soulful
effect, reminiscent in some ways of the young Montgomery
Clift. In 1990, when Babette Mangolte tracked him down
in Mexico for her documentary, The Models of Pickpocket,
he described how the experience of the film had marked his
FI L M Q UARTERLY 35
 entire life. LaSalle, who has worked for many years as a film
and theater actor, recalled that Bresson told his models to
repeat actions over and over, never explaining why. At one
point he shot forty takes of LaSalle doing nothing more
than walking up a stairway. The technique nevertheless had
emotional consequences for the actor. LaSalle believed that
Bresson was trying to provoke an inner tension that would
be seen in the hands and eyes, as if he wanted to weaken
the ego of the model, thereby inducing doubt, anxiety,
and anguish tinged with pleasure. Although LaSalles
performance was achieved through a sort of imitation or rote
repetition of prescribed gestures and looks, it was by no means
unfeeling. I felt the tension of the pickpocket, LaSalle told
Mangolte. I think, even if we are only models, as [Bresson]
says, we still take part in and internalize the activity. I felt as
if I were living the situation, not externally but in a sensory
way. The astonishing result was that after Pickpocket LaSalle
moved to New York and studied for four years at the Actors
Studio with Lee Strasberg, who became the second great
influence on his career.
Important as personal expression in acting can be, theres
something disingenuous about the modern pedagogical
Top: The Ladykillers. 1955 Canal + Image UK Ltd. DVD:
tendency to devalue the art of imitation. We can find many Optimum Releasing (U.K.). Bottom: Being Julia. 2004 by
2024846 Ontario Inc., Being Julia Productions Limited, ISL Film
instances in the history of cinema in which even the most Kft. DVD: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (U.K.).

realistic actors are required to imitate or impersonate,

sometimes in obviously artificial fashion. We need only think
of film comedy, which often involves a foregrounding of
the tricks of performance that drama tries to conceal. Alec
Guinness, whose work usually depended upon minimalism
and British reserve, was one of the most natural-seeming
performers in screen history, and yet he performed in a
manifestly imitative way when he played comedy rather than
drama. As George Smiley, the leading character in the British
television adaptation of John Le Carres Tinker, Tailor, Soldier,
Spy (1989), Guinness is so lacking in energetic movement and
obvious emotion that he makes the actors around him look
like Dickensian caricatures; he conveys repressed intensity
only when he makes slight adjustments of his eyeglasses and
bowler hat. Contrast his work in The Ladykillers (1955), where,
as the leader of a group of crooks, he wears comic buck teeth
and sinister eye makeup, and where his interactions with his
aged landlady overflow with fake sincerity. Both performances
may well have involved a mix of personal feeling and imitative
modeling, but in the latter picture, as Pudovkin might say,
Guinness seems to portray feelings, so that the audience, if not
the nave old lady, can see his act.
The burlesque comic Ed Wynn once distinguished
between joke-telling clowns and comic actors. The first
type, Wynn explained, says and does funny things and the
second type says and does things funnily. This is especially
true of acting in light comedy, which depends upon an
ability to execute ordinary movements and expressions in
amusing ways, as if quoting conventions. Ernst Lubitschs
Paramount musicals of the early 1930s, for example,
require the actors to behave in a chic but visibly imitative
style. In The Love Parade (1929), which employs a good
deal of silent pantomime, Maurice Chevalier is cast as a
Parisian playboy and military attach to the unmarried and
sexually yearning Queen of Sylvania, played by Jeanette
MacDonald. When the two characters meet, their stiff
formality soon dissolves into flirtation and then into a
duet entitled Anything to Please the Queen. Their every
gesture, intonation, and expression is so heightened and
intensified that theres barely any difference between their
talking and singing, and at one point during the song
Chevalier gives us a comic demonstration of pantomime
acting: You want me to be cold then Ill be cold, he sings,
chin lifted, eyebrows raised, looking down his nose. You
want me to be bold then Ill be bold, he adds, smiling
aggressively. Or hot! he shouts, standing at attention and
promising anything to please the Queen. As MacDonald
leads him to her boudoir, he turns as if addressing a theater
audience, leers, and opens his eyes in delight.

36 sum m er 2012

This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Lubitschs non-musical Trouble in Paradise (1932) might
seem different because of Samson Raphaelsons witty dialogue,
but it, too, involves obvious imitation, in part because nearly
all the characters are pretending or wearing social masks.
A roughly similar form of visibly imitative performance-
within-performance often occurs in films that have theater
as a theme, or that feature what Leo Braudys The World in
a Frame calls theatrical characters, thus evoking a sense of
the self as theater. For a complex example, see Being Julia
(2004), which concerns an actor whose excess of personal
emotion threatens to undermine her performances. Annette
Bening plays a middle-aged British stage star of the 1930s, a
larger-than-life character endowed with innate theatricality
and acute sensitivity. The realistic performance requires
Bening to imitate certain conventional models of character;
she must adopt a British accent and her every gesture and
expression, both on stage and off, must suggest the fragile
histrionics of an aging diva. The plot of the film concerns the
eponymous heroines affair with an American fan barely older
than her adolescent son, who seduces her and then turns her
into a miserable, sexually dependent slave. When the affair
begins, shes lifted out of a mild depression and becomes
giddy; but when her lover withdraws and treats her coldly,
she becomes a haggard, weeping neurotic, alternately angry
and groveling. What helps her conquer the roller-coaster of
emotion is her memory of a long dead director and mentor
(Michael Gambon), who magically appears in moments of
crisis, criticizing her everyday performance and dispensing
advice. This ghostly figure is a projection of her own critical
self-consciousnessan internal monitor or coach, created
through her professional ability to mentally observe her
performances as they happen, both on stage and in real life.
In Denis Diderots words, Julia has within herself, like all
the best actors, an unmoved and disinterested onlooker. At
her most anguished point, when shes weeping hysterically,
the dead director appears and mocks her ability to turn on
the waterworks. He advises her to become a more imitative
actor, exactly the sort of player Diderot might have admired:
Youve got to learn to seem to do itthats the art of acting!
Hold the mirror up to nature, ducky. Otherwise you become
a nervous wreck.
The stage acting in Being Julia, shown in cinematic close-
ups, is manifestly artificial and full of tricks: we see heavy
makeup on the actors faces, we hear the actors loud voices
projected toward the theater auditorium, and we glimpse
Bening struggling with a misplaced prop during a tearful
scene. In the offstage sequences, however, emotions are
expressed in what seems a realistically intimate, sometimes
nakedly exposed manner. In the scene in which Bening has
This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
her tearful breakdown, she wears no evident makeup and her
pale skin becomes red and blotchy as she weeps. We can never
know (without asking her) how this scene was achieved
she may have been feigning emotion, she may have been
playing herself in imaginary circumstances, and she may
have been doing both. No matter how she accomplished
her task, her performance looks as if she were being Julia
rather than imitating her. At the same time, of course, it also
showcases her acting skill, because the audience recognizes
that everything is accomplished by Annette Bening, whose
body and expressive attributes can be seen in other films.
The doubling effect of actor and role has a long history,
essential to the development of the star system. It first emerged
in eighteenth-century theater, at the time of Diderot, when
leading actors such as David Garrick not only imitated
Hamlet but also brought individual style or personality to the
fore. Thus, as time went on, it became possible to speak of
David Garricks Hamlet, John Barrymores Hamlet, John
Gielguds Hamlet, Laurence Oliviers Hamlet, and Mel
Gibsons Hamlet. In motion pictures the phenomenon was
intensified, with the result that stars often gained ascendency
over roles, repeatedly playing the same character types and
bringing the same personal attributes and mannerisms to
every appearance. Consider again Maurice Chevalier, who
at Paramount in the 1930s was cast as a military officer,
a medical doctor, and a tailor, but who always played
essentially the same personality. Chevalier had been a hugely
popular cabaret singer and star of the Folies Bergre in Paris
during the 1920s, and Hollywood wanted him to display
many of the performing traits associated with that success;
in his Paramount musicals of the pre-Code era, hes always
the boulevardier in a straw hat, the representative of what
American audiences at the time thought of as gay Paree
sophisticated, exuberant, grinning, amusingly adept at sexual
innuendo, always ready to charm and seduce beautiful
women. He not only imitates certain conventional gestures
and expressions for the sake of comedy but also reproduces
the broad smile, the jaunty posture, the suggestive leer, the
rolling eyes, and the distinctive French accent that were
associated with Maurice Chevalier. His public personality
was in a sense unique, but it was nonetheless a carefully
crafted model in Diderots sense of the terma model so
idiosyncratic that it became a popular subject for generations
of comic impersonators to imitate.
Chevaliers performances were stylized and extroverted,
and for that reason he could be viewed as what the early
futurists and the Soviet avant-garde called an eccentric
actor. Relatively few of the leading players in classic
Hollywood had this extreme kind of eccentricity, although
FI L M Q UARTERLY 37
 comics like the Marx Brothers and W. C. Fields or unusual
personalities like Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler, and Mickey
Rooney certainly qualify, as do many character actors of
the period. Leading players, on the other hand, tended to
have symmetrical faces and usually behaved in a neutral,
almost invisible fashion. Even so, the classic-era stars were
no less carefully constructed than the character actors; their
identities were created not only by their roles but also by
their physical characteristics and their ability to fuse apparent
naturalness with eccentricities of expression. Humphrey
Bogart, for example, was a natural-looking performer who
listened intently to other players and seemed to have a
reflective, mysteriously experienced inner life; he appeared
to be thinking (a very different effect from Garbos blank-
faced close-up in Queen Christina [1933]), conveying what
Andr Bazin described in his Cahiers du Cinma obituary of
Bogart as a mixture of distrust and weariness, wisdom and
skepticism. But his ability to live the character or convey
inwardness was accompanied by carefully crafted displays
of personal mannerisms. For instance, when he wanted to
create an air of relaxed confidence or bravado, he hooked his
thumbs into his pant waist. He may have been reacting as he
naturally would, but the gesture was practiced and perfected
until it became part of an expressive rhetoric, a repertory of
performance signs. Bogart played many roles, among them a
private eye, a gangster, a neurotic sea captain, a disturbingly
violent Hollywood screenwriter, an old-rich New Yorker, and
an aging Cockney sailor; but the gesture persisted through
variations of character. You can see the business with the
thumbs in such different pictures as The Big Sleep (1945)
and The Barefoot Contessa (1954). You can also see it in a
wartime short subject, Hollywood Victory Caravan (1945),
where Bogart and other stars appear as themselves and
where, as Gary Giddens has observed in Natural Selection,
Bogart stands with thumbs under belt as though he were
doing a Bogart impression.
In a sense, Bogart was always imitating or copying a
model of Humphrey Bogart, and like Chevalier he became
a star that comic entertainers liked to impersonate. Others
have included Marlon Brando, Bette Davis, James Cagney,
Kirk Douglas, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn,
Burt Lancaster, Marilyn Monroe, Edgar G. Robinson, James
Stewart, and John Wayne. (The most popular subject of
comic impersonation in the United States as I write this
essay is probably Christopher Walken, an eccentric if ever
there was one.) Usually the stars were identifiable because
of a peculiar voice or accent, an oddity of facial expression,
or a distinctive walk. John Wayne had a drawling California
accent, a habit of raising his eyebrows and wrinkling his
38 sum m er 2012
This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
forehead to express surprise or consternation, and an oddly
rolling, almost mincing gait; Marilyn Monroe had a breathy
voice, a parted mouth with a quivering upper lip, and an
undulating, provocative walk that emphasized her hips and
breasts. Other stars, especially the stoic males like Dana
Andrews or the flawless females like Ava Gardner, were
difficult to mimic except perhaps in caricatured drawings, but
even they had performing quirks or tricks, such as Andrewss
tendency to cock his elbow out to his side drinking from a
glass. There are so many famous names one could mention
in this context that eccentricity would seem the norm rather
than the exception.
In the history of cinema there have also been many
occasions when famous actors overtly impersonated the
eccentricities of other famous actors. One of the best
known examples is Tony Curtiss impersonation of Cary
Grant in Some Like it Hot (1959Curtiss equally amusing
impersonation of a woman in the film is based partly on
Eve Arden.) A more recent instance is Cate Blanchetts
remarkable impersonation of Bob Dylan in Todd Hayness
Im Not There (2007), a film in which Dylan is also played
by Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, and
Heath Ledger. Blanchett is the only actor in the group who
tries to look and behave like Dylan, and her performance is a
tour de force, achieving uncanny likeness to the androgynous
pop star. But impersonation in fiction film, especially when
performed by a star, has a paradoxical effect; the more
perfect it is, the more conscious we are of the performer
who accomplishes it. Successful impersonation in real life
is a form of identity theft, but in theater or film our pleasure
as an audience derives from our awareness that its Curtis
pretending to be Grant or Blanchett pretending to be Dylan,
never a complete illusion.
The example of Blanchett serves to remind us that
the film genre most likely to involve overt imitation or
impersonation of one actor by another is the biopic, or more
specifically the film that tells the life story of a celebrity in the
modern media. Film biographies of remote historical figures
or real-life personalities from outside the media seldom if
ever require true impersonation; we have no recordings or
films of Napoleon or Lincoln, and the many actors who have
played them on the screen needed only conform in general
ways to certain painted portraits or still photographs. When
a conventionally realistic biopic concerns a popular star of
film or television, however, the situation is more difficult.
The actor needs to give a non-comic, reasonably convincing
impersonation of a known model while also serving the larger
ends of the story. No matter how accurate the impersonation
might be, the audience will inevitably be aware that an actor
Top left: The Big Sleep. 1946 Turner Entertainment Co. DVD: Warner Home Video (U.K.). Top right: The Barefoot Contessa. 1954 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. DVD:
MGM Home Entertainment (U.K.). Middle, bottom left: The Jolson Story. 1946, renewed 1973 Columbia Pictures Industries Inc. DVD: Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment
(U.K.). DVD: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (U.K.). Bottom right: The Prince and the Showgirl. 1957 Marilyn Monroe Productions Inc. DVD: Warner Home Video (U.K.).

FI L M Q UARTERLY 39

This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 is imitating a famous personage; but if it becomes too much
a display of virtuoso imitation, it can create an unwanted
alienation effect or sense of caricature.
Larry Parkss portrayal of Al Jolson in a quintessential
Hollywood biopic, The Jolson Story (1946), deals with
these problems by almost avoiding impersonation during
the dramatic episodes of the film. Parks behaves with
an ebullience appropriate to an old-time showman,
occasionally speaking with a brash New York accent, but
he makes little attempt to mimic the famous entertainers
distinctive looks or vocal tone; more handsome than the
real Jolson, who was alive and a star on the radio when the
film was made, he simply adds his attractiveness, youthful
vigor and charm to the generally flattering, glamorizing
aims of the project. When he breaks into song, however,
he creates a different effect. We hear the actual Jolsons
voice on the soundtracka voice that gives the film an aura
of authenticity and convinces us of Jolsons talentbut
Parks very convincingly recreates the singers trade-mark
mannerisms, most of which were derived from years of
performing in provincial vaudeville and blackface minstrel
shows. All the signature Jolson moves are on display: the
rhythmic rocking from side to side, the strut across the
stage, the broad grin, the widely rolling eyes, the clasped
hands, the dropping to the floor on one knee with arms
open wide. These gestures and expressions had become
Top: White Hunter Black Heart. 1990 Warner Bros. Inc.
so much associated with Jolson that he was relatively easy DVD: Warner Home Video. Bottom: Infamous. 2006 Warner
Bros. Entertainment Inc. DVD: Warner Home Video (U.K.).
to impersonate. (At one point the film acknowledges this:
Evelyn Keyes, who plays Jolsons wife, does an enthusiastic
but joking impersonation of Jolson singing California, Here co-authored the screenplay, is an unusually gifted mimic and
I Come. Only a few moments before, weve seen Larry Parks a sincere admirer of Darin. He sings all the musical numbers
as Jolson singing that same number.) Parkss charisma and himself and is such a skillful impersonator that when the film
energy nevertheless enhance Jolsons image. He never jokes was released he went on tour in the United States performing
with the Jolson persona and in the end becomes exactly a live recreation of Darins nightclub act. Ironically,
what Hollywood wants him to be: an idealized version of however, the closer he comes to reproducing Darins voice
Jolson as played by the star Larry Parks.* and mannerisms, the more he reveals a disparity between
Beyond the Sea (2004), a somewhat modernist, Fellini- himself and the man hes imitating. Hes a less dynamic and
esque biopic about the short life of singeractor Bobby charismatic personality than Darin, and to make matters
Darin, makes an interesting contrast. Kevin Spacey, who worse hes slightly too old. The whole purpose of the film is
not only stars in the film but also produced, directed, and to celebrate Darins talent, which was doomed from the start
because of a childhood illness from which he succumbed
at an early age; unfortunately and no doubt unintentionally,
* As Leo Braudy has observed, the sequel to this film, Jolson Sings Beyond the Sea feels more like a vanity project in celebration
Again (1949), creates a double impersonation and a Byzantine of Spaceys talent for mimicry.
relation between actor and character: Larry Parks plays the
Biopics in general are crucially dependent upon an
older Jolson, who makes a comeback when he records songs for
interaction between mimicry and realistic acting that
the actor Larry Parks to lip-sync in The Jolson Story; in a scene in
can become threatened when a major star undertakes an
a screening room, we see Larry Parks shaking hands with Larry
Parks, while the real Jolson makes a cameo appearance seated in
impersonation. In White Hunter Black Heart (1990), one of
the back row of the room. Clint Eastwoods most underrated films, Eastwood plays a

40 sum m er 2012

This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
character based on John Huston and in the process accurately
imitates Hustons slow, courtly manner of speaking. Good as
the imitation is, it has a slightly disconcerting (intentionally
alienating?) effect because its performed by an iconic star
in the classic mold; any basic change in such an actors
voice and persona seems bizarre, almost as if he had donned
a wig or a false nose. Probably for this reason, some of the
most effective impersonations in recent films have been
accomplished by actors who arent stars in the classic sense,
and are able to take advantage of the growing popularity
of screen biography. Meryl Streep, a master of accents and
mimicry, has convincingly played both Julia Child and
Margaret Thatcher. In Capote (2005), Phillip Seymour
Hoffman, also famous as an actor rather than star, gives an
especially compelling impersonationnever a slavish copy
of the model and so emotionally convincing that imitative
skill never distracts viewers from the characterization. This
last achievement is all the more impressive because Capote
was an ostentatiously eccentric figure, the kind of personality
that might seem comically grotesque. An effective self-
publicist who relished celebrity and society gossip, he was
far better known than most writers in America; people who
never read his books saw him often on television, especially as
a guest on Johnny Carsons Tonight Show, but it was difficult
to say whether the mass audience viewed him more as a
witty TV conversationalist or as a freak. Short and chubby,
with a round face resembling a dissipated child, he spoke
in a high-pitched, nasal, effeminate voice that was marked
by a whining Southern drawl, and he gestured with broad,
limp-wristed movements. In the period when he became
famous, few if any media personalities were so obviously and
theatrically gay.
Very soon after Capote was released, Toby Jones played
Capote in Infamous (2006), which, like the Hoffman film,
deals with the events surrounding the writing of Capotes
In Cold Blood, a non-fiction novel about the murder of
a Kansas farm family and the capture and execution of the
killers. Joness performance is less interesting than Hoffmans,
even though he has the advantage of a greater natural
resemblance to the diminutive Capote. Hoffmans neck and
chin are strong and his physique sturdy; hes also a bit too
tall, although the film compensates for this by the way it
frames and photographs him in relation to the other actors.
He adopts Capotes hair style and effeminate gestures and
wears costumes that aid the performance, such as a luxurious
scarf and floor-length top coat. He stands as Capote did, with
back slightly arched and belly thrust forward and is good at
duplicating the Capote voice and accent, which he masters
to such a degree that he uses it effectively even in the softly
spoken, intimate moments. (His co-star, Catherine Keener,
who plays Harper Lee, has far less need to impersonate
because Lee was notoriously shy and reclusive, lacking a
celebrity image.) Beyond mimicry, Hoffmans portrayal
is noteworthy for its subtlety and psychological nuance,

Clockwise from top left: Capote. 2005 United Artists Films Inc. DVD: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (U.K.). My Week with Marilyn. 2011 The Weinstein Company LLC.
DVD: Entertainment In Video (U.K.). Me and Orson Welles. 2009 CinemaNX Film One Limited 2009. DVD: Icon Home Entertainment (U.K.). Beyond the Sea. 2004 QI
Quality International GmbH & Co. KG and Archer Street (Beyond the Sea) Limited. DVD: Entertainment In Video (U.K.).

FI L M Q UARTERLY 41

This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 which are worthy of the best Stanislavskian acting. Largely
through silent reaction shots, he enables us to see Capotes
mingled voyeuristic curiosity and fear over the murders; his
growing attraction to one of the killers; and his manipulation
of the Kansas community, the two condemned men, and
the publishers of his book. As Robert Sklar points out in a
fine discussion of the film in Cineaste, the contradictions
and complexities of the character are shaped and shaded
by Hoffmans appropriation of typical Capote mannerisms:
In an early scene, Hoffman/Capote points his chin in the
air, a movement signaling at once vanity and vulnerability.
The actor conveys Capotes conviction that his inner demons
can be controlled by regarding the self as a constant
performance.
One phenomenon peculiar to celebrity impersonation
in the biopic is that it often takes a few scenes for the
audience to fully accept the mimicry and settle into a
willing suspension of disbelief. Michelle Williams and
Kenneth Branagh, who play Marilyn Monroe and Laurence
Olivier in My Week with Marilyn (2011), dont quite look
like their models, and their difficulties are exacerbated by
the fact that they not only impersonate famous personalities
but also give precise imitations of Monroe and Olivier
acting in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). Williams
overcomes potential reservations by virtue of her luminous
beauty and exemplary rendition of Marilyns often-imitated
accent and little-girl voice. At a more subtle and realistic
level, the performance gives complexity to the character,
suggesting Marilyns insecurity and guile, vulnerability and
intelligence, and neurotic mix of fear and pleasure over
the power of her stardom. (Williams also demonstrates
that Marilyns image was a kind of imitation: at one point,
faced with a small crowd of admirers, she asks a companion,
Shall I be her? and breaks into an open-mouthed show
of voluptuousness.) For his part, Branagh gives an amusing
impersonation of the actor who has often been regarded as
his predecessor. Hes especially good at capturing Oliviers
narcissistic qualities: the airy theatricality and flourish of his
gestures; the tendency to raise his hand to his brow like a
gentleman lifting a teacup; the rising, sing-song inflection
of his voice; the melancholic postures and sudden gusts of
witchy, almost girlish business. Branagh even accurately
reproduces the comic Carpathian accent Olivier used in
The Prince and the Showgirl.
When an unknown actor performs impersonation, the
effect is different because the audience doesnt know the
actors normal self. A good example, which Ive previously
noted in the pages of this journal (summer 2010), is Christian
McKays performance as Orson Welles in Richard Linklaters
42 sum m er 2012
This content downloaded from 143.106.201.147 on Sat, 13 Aug 2016 22:28:20 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Me and Orson Welles (2009). Welles has been played by many
actorsPaul Shenar, Eric Purcell, Jean Guerin, Vincent
DOnofrio (aided by the voice of Maurice LaMarche), Liev
Schreiber, and Angus MacFadyenbut none have come so
close to his looks, voice, and slightest mannerisms. Linklaters
film concerns the Mercury Theaters 1937 staging of the
modern-dress Julius Caesar, and the players around McKay
in the roles of John Houseman, Joseph Cotten, Norman
Lloyd, and George Coulouris do little to imitate people
they represent; almost the entire responsibility for creating a
persuasive historical representation falls on McKay, who had
previously appeared in a one-man stage show about Welles
and made a close study of his model. Its an affectionate,
lightly comic portrayal that imitates Welless vaguely mid-
Atlantic accent, twinkle in the eye, forbidding glance, and
heavy yet somehow buoyant walk. McKay is slightly too old
(Welles was twenty-two at the time of Julius Caesar) and
never displays Welless infectious laugh; but he merges with
the character more completely than a star could have done
and is just as convincing when he tries to seduce a young
woman as when he proclaims ideas about theater. To hear
him read aloud a passage from Booth Tarkingtons The
Magnificent Ambersons is to feel one were in the presence of
Welles. Even so, viewers can sense a bit of the actor McKay
alongside the impersonation, taking obvious pleasure in the
magic trick he performs.
Where the teaching of acting and the critical reception
of films are concerned, this and other sorts of imitation
arent usually regarded as the most valued skill players
possess; nevertheless, in one form or another, imitation
is a crucial part of what actors do and is often a source
of recognizable pleasure for the audience. Imitation
contributes to the system of genres and styles (as in the
distinction weve seen between comedy and drama or
between conventional realism and a director like Bresson)
and more generally to the rhetoric of characterization and
personality on the screen. When we encounter an overt,
creative impersonation, as in the case of McKay and other
examples Ive given, the performers skill becomes sharply
visible and perhaps we begin to appreciate actorly imitation
in all its manifestations as what it has always been: an art.
JAMES NAREMORE is at work on a collection of his essays and a book about Charles
Burnett.
ABSTRACT Modern theories of acting follow Stanislavsky and emphasize emotional
truthfulness achieved through self-expression, but an older tradition emphasizes tech-
nique and imitation and this emphasis is argued to be equally relevant to movie acting.
KEYWORDS acting, self-expression, cinema and emotion, biopic, impersonation