Jordan Beswick

“The truth is, if it isn’t abused, the Method can help. The Method school of acting came from the theories of Konstantin Stanislavsky, director of the Moscow Arts Theatre. Stanislavsky encouraged actors to ‘respond as much to their own inner feelings as to the requirements of the text for dramatic effectiveness.’ While I believe it’s all well and good to give yourself over and plumb your own depths for the part, I’m afraid the Method often became a matter of self-indulgence and self-consciousness. Furthermore, I didn’t think it was the one and only way to do things any more than I believed that the Delsarte Method was the be-all and end-all. You have to be real and alive and fresh in the part each time. That’s your job, and there are many roads to good acting. I’ve been asked repeatedly what the “key” to acting is, and as far as I’m concerned, the main thing is to keep the audience awake.”

– Maureen Stapleton, A Hell of a Life

The Impressionistic, Fantastical Cinematic Self-Portrait
by Erica Abeel, August 20, 2004

It takes chutzpah to ask viewers to empathize with a heroine who suffers from an excess of money. Yet in her enthralling first feature, director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (who also plays the poor little rich girl) does just that, making us root for thirtysomething Federica, a guilt-ridden heiress who drives her silver Porsche to church to confess her sin of obscene wealth. Bruni Tedeschi pulls off this sleight of hand through her sure command of an impressionistic style flecked with oddball humor, a seamless weave of reality and fantasy — including animated sequences, and flashbacks from childhood, both imagined and factual. In Federica, Bruni Tedeschi has created an indelible persona — clownish and vulnerable, and somewhat reminiscent of Giulietta Masina — though more physically luscious. As well, on some unvoiced level, the heroine’s malaise over her bucks taps into the viewer’s sentiment that the guilt might be justified.

Well-known in Europe as an actress, Bruni Tedeschi joins a company of gifted French female directors that includes Palme d’Or winner Agnes Jaoui, Anne Fontaine, Julie Lopes Curval, and Julie Bertucelli. Though I’m on shaky ground in saying this, she shares with them a distinctively feminine sensibility: a gaze trained on male petulance and entitlement; a gentle style lacking in bombast; a broody tenderness toward the characters and recognition of human fragility. However, Bruni Tedeschi, who collaborated on the screenplay with stated mentor Noemie Lvovsky, adds a new wrinkle: the film is a self-portrait, a kind of cinematic memoir reportedly based on her own family, who emigrated to France in the seventies, to flee the rash of kidnappings in Italy (memorably recalled in the recent “I’m Not Scared.”) Boosting the autobiographical tone, Marysa Borini, the director’s real mother, plays Federica’s mom.

Read the Full Story @ indieWIRE.com

(by Patricia Thomson, August 9, 2004)

Who would have guessed that a comedy about the fall of East Germany would become a smash success? But “Good Bye, Lenin!” is that and much more. Its box office already dwarfs that of “Run Lola Run,” Germany’s last breakout hit, which was also produced by the X-Filme collective. But more surprisingly,
“Good Bye, Lenin!” has also tapped a deep reservoir of nostalgia towards East Germany, a country and culture that disappeared overnight.

“Good Bye, Lenin!” takes place in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall tumbled down. Twenty-year-old Alex (Daniel Br

Are there actors you admire or careers that give you inspiration?
I borrow from everybody. John Hurt gave me some very good advice. When we were doing Midnight Express, I took investigating your navel to the limit – that Method acting attitude that if you don’t mumble to yourself for half an hour and hit your head against a wall, you can’t possibly do it. I was so into that, and he would say, “Why do you put yourself through all that?” I said, “I want it to be real. How do you do it?” He said, “I pretend. It’s that simple. It’s like cowboys and Indians when you’re a kid.” Well, when I was studying acting, the word “pretend” wasn’t allowed in the room. I took “pretend” to mean fake, phoney, bullshit. At first I was stunned. Then I thought, “If what he’s doing is pretend, it’s pretending in a way I never thought you could pretend. It’s believing.”

What do you think of in that moment when the house lights are out, just before going onstage?
I think, “I can’t believe I’m going to do this again.” What I do to myself is very intense. I don’t cheat – I don’t know how. It’s hard for me to walk through a play, say, at a matinee and only give three-fourths. If I did that, nothing would come out. I think, “Take a deep breath.”