What Actors Want

Occasionally, while watching a show, I'll remind myself that when actors look at a script, what grabs them isn't necessarily the same thing that grabs us viewers.

It's the different between production and product.

For example, there may be an episode with an incredibly important minor character, so important viewers become attached to the character. But page-wise, the character actually doesn't have that many lines/scenes.

Another complaint for many actors is "I didn't get to emote!" No sob scenes happened in the episode; the actor didn't get to show off his/her skills.

I can somewhat sympathize with these reactions. For the actors, the script represents a job/money. But I really respect someone like Jerry Orbach who said, of Law & Order, "It's a lot more fun for actors to cry and rant and rave, or have a drug problem or a drinking problem. Once in a while I get jealous of people who get to do real histrionics. But that's all right. That stuff's only about awards. It's not about people watching. People are very loyal to our show, and they want to see the case resolved in an hour."

I think this is possibly the coolest quote ever. And underlying this quote is a very important truth: the product (episode, movie) may actually benefit from a restrained performance; quite often, a non-histronic performance may result in something far more deep and emotional than would have been produced IF the actors were able to "showcase" their talents. In fact, "showcasing" (look what I can do!) may actually result in a WORSE product.

But trying to make this clear to actors must give directors a complete headache.

Why Can't (B) Actors Be President?

I can't begin to list the number of television episodes/movies I've seen which include this line or a variation thereof: "In the future, I can't believe a B-actor will be elected president!"

This exchange from Back to the Future is a good example:

Dr. Emmett Brown: Then tell me, "Future Boy", who's President of the United States in 1985?
Marty McFly: Ronald Reagan.
Dr. Emmett Brown: Ronald Reagan? The actor? [chuckles in disbelief]
Dr. Emmett Brown: Then who's VICE-President? Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady!
Marty McFly: [following Doc] Whoa! Wait! Doc!
Dr. Emmett Brown: And Jack Benny is Secretary of the Treasury.

This viewpoint has always struck me as rather undemocratic. Isn't this the country where hairdressers, small business owners, dairy farmers, cops, and department Santa Clauses could all become president? Why not actors and/or singers? Are career politicians really the BEST choice?

But more than undemocratic, the lines (about Ronald Reagan; I rarely hear similar comments about Sonny Bono) have always struck me as odd: Why would actors put themselves down like this?

Then one day I realized that it is scriptwriters, not actors, who come up with these lines, and scriptwriters can be rather obnoxious, especially when they hold grudges. And nobody holds a grudge like a self-appointed "high IQ" scriptwriter who makes actors look good but whom nobody knows exists.

But, still, why would the ACTORS repeat the lines? Has no actor ever said, "Excuse me, I'm a B-actor, and I think I would have the right to go into politics if I wanted?"

It is possible that most actors just want to be paid and even possible that most honestly don't think they should be in politics. It is also possible that some actors are so sheep-like about politics, they are perfectly willing to sabotage basic democratic principles for the sake of a snide joke, in which case they shouldn't be involved in politics--AT ALL. Stop trying to save America from itself, Hollywood!

On the other hand, statistically-speaking, I'm sure there are some actors with strong political visions who are attracted to the local or National political scene. I might not vote for all of them, but I would certainly defend their right to try to get my vote.

Historical Fiction and the Tipping Point of Belief

In the novel Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov, Asimov's detective Elijah Bailey has to investigate a murder on the planet, Aurora. On his way to Aurora, Elijah reads books of Aurorian history/sociology, etc. However, when he arrives, he discovers that the books didn't prepare him for basic, everyday stuff, such as public bathrooms being unisex. This basic, everyday stuff never occurred to the historians/sociologists because it's the kind of stuff they would have taken for granted.

This is the fundamental difference between historical fiction and fiction written in a historical period. No matter how hard we try, we can never really capture the same feel or attitudes of writers like Austen, Dickens, and Walter Scott because we aren't products of their time periods, and we don't know what to take for granted.

When PBS was running its House series, this was an ongoing issue. Interestingly enough, the best of the series (1940s and Manor House) insisted that the participants follow certain rules. The participants weren't just stuck in a time period and expected to enjoy/endure it. They had to agree to comply with appropriate social protocols (the servants had to behave as and do the work of servants; the WWII family had to endure air-raids and suffer food privations).

I think writers of historical fiction can capture the tone and feel of a time period's mindset. I think they can even give us insights into that mindset. I also think it can never be a perfect fit. I am currently working on a "between the lines" telling of Pamela (with literary commentary). At one point, I entertained the possibility that my hero would make a dismissive statement about politicians (whom he doesn't care for) by referring to Wilberforce and "those yapping members" who won't shut up about slavery.

I couldn't do it, partly because actually my hero wouldn't care about slavery one way or the other (none of his money is invested in the West Indies), partly because his wife would likely support Wilberforce, but mostly because from a modern 21st century point of view, such an attitude makes him an awful human being. I could argue that as a product of his culture, the hero would have perceived Wilberforce and his supporters (whom I admire) as simply one cause/voice/idea amongst many, but that knowledge doesn't leap the empathy gap.

(Black Adder was brave enough to tackle this idea. In Black Adder the Third, when Baldrick runs for Parliament, this conversation ensues between a fellow politician and a (real) television journalist:

Ivor Biggun: We're for the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast, free corsets for the under-5s and the abolition of slavery.
Vincent Hanna, His Own Great Great Great Grandfather: I'm sure many moderate people would respect your stand on asparagus, but what about all this extremist nonsense about abolishing slavery?
Ivor Biggun: Oh, that! We just put that in for a joke! See you next year!)

Still, historical fiction can never completely mesh with the mindset of a historical time period, no matter how brave the writer.

Which doesn't mean it shouldn't try.

I think every reader has a tipping point, a point where the non-historical mindset becomes too much--the story isn't history anymore; it's just modernism dressed up in historical clothes. The tipping point is different for everyone. I am quite ready to accept non-accuracies in books when the writers don't pretend they are doing anything else but having fun. I despise non-accuracies where the good characters are good ONLY because they reflect modern ways of thinking.

So I quite like Ellis Peters' Cadfael series because although Cadfael is a trifle progressive for his time period, Peters never fails to bring him back to a core reality. And she only allows him to be progressive over issues that were raised in that time period. And, as a monk, he is a true believer. (Peters knew how to write 1960's "all spirituality is relative" stuff; she didn't do it with Cadfael because it wouldn't have been accurate, and she was a reputable historian.)

In comparison, I get mighty tired of books where women become suffragettes/pro-women's rights/pro-contemporary-progressive-issues without having to suffer any of the actual consequences of the time period and/or without understanding their choices from within the mindset of the time period. (This type of characterization can be done; it's just very difficult.) I couldn't stand The Red Tent because the women were so hopelessly modern and the men so hopelessly not. Geez, people, if you're going to play this game, play it fair.

On the other hand, Amelia Peabody in Elizabeth Peters' Egypt series is a good example of a "modern" woman who, at least in the first few books (I haven't read more), doesn't stray too far in her opinions out of what was actually likely for a woman to think in the late nineteenth century (the nineteenth century produced some very interesting and independent women).

Back to books I get tired of: those which simply transfer modern arguments to historical settings. I gave up on one author when she had a conversation, taking place in approximately 100 C.E., sound like a conversation between a modern-day "free thinker" and modern-day fundamentalist. (She also had the characters using and referring to the Christian Cross as if it meant the same thing to them as it does to us in the same way, i.e. 1500+ years of Christian iconography. Um, no.)

On the other hand, I quite like Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia series. She may take a few liberties (it's not my time period, so I'm not sure), but the attitudes are consistent and don't take sudden leaps into implausibility. I feel the same way about C.S. Harris' Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries (although the PLOT of the romance in those mysteries is a bit too deux ex machina: everyone conveniently isn't available when he or she shouldn't be available).

In any case, the "oh, that doesn't work!" wince is different for everyone. It may depend on what history you've have read; it may just depend on what feels right at the gut level. But it's there. As long as there is historical fiction (may it continue forever), it won't ever go away.

Dean Stockwell's Kim and the New Childhood

I recently read Kim by Rudyard Kipling for a bookclub and really enjoyed it. I then watched the 1950 film with Dean Stockwell and Errol Flynn.

The movie is fairly good. It was "filmed on location." This means that a bunch of outdoor shots were filmed in India; everything else was done on a sound-stage.

But the movie does has a nice authentic feel to it (I was worried that it would be like The Ten Commandments, which I enjoy watching but which is hokey in the extreme: just watch Joshua organizing the Israelites in his best "Are we ready, boys and girls?" camp counselor manner.)

Kim is surprisingly straightforward and non-hokey, sticking closely to the book up until the last twenty minutes.

At which point it suddenly takes a nose-dive into . . . I don't know. I don't know what they were trying to do. I don't think they knew what they were trying to do.

I have a theory. Up until the last twenty minutes, the film focuses on Kim, played perfectly by Dean Stockwell. At fourteen, Stockwell has the compact, dark exuberance that Kipling ascribes to Kim.

But he isn't quite old enough to play Kim at seventeen (this is a pity; if Stockwell had been only a year older, he could have played both Kim's younger and older self with little difficulty). Consequently, the action from the book is squeezed from approximately five years into 1-1/2. Kim is still a child when he goes to hunt the Russian spies.

Kipling wouldn't have a problem with this. In the book, he continually emphasizes that Kim's controllers want to mold but not break him. They release him from his "English" studies as quickly as possible. They want him educated (and loyal), not disciplined to be a rigid, unimaginative, British officer.

This dovetails very nicely with Kipling's beliefs regarding India. He supported the British Empire, but he believed (correctly) that it was badly managed. He believed, for example, that the British administrators in India should NOT be upperclass boys trained in England with no real knowledge of the country or ability to work with the native people. His book Stalky & Co. is basically about the type of boys who should be sent to administer India. Stalky, specifically, is a Kim proto-type.

So Kipling has Kim released from the British system as quickly as possible. He had little to no trouble sending this boy back into a dangerous environment. In fact, he implies that Kim was safer when he was younger and more savvy. Educate him any further, and he'll be too stupid to survive.

This idea was not something that 1950 America could readily stomach. The idea of "childhood" as a pure time of innocence had been growing since the Victorian era; post-WWII, middle-class American parents didn't want their kids being trained to play the "Great Game." They wanted them in college, learning to be businessmen and therapists and school-teachers.

Subsequently, the end of the film Kim turns into a film about Errol Flynn--Errol Flynn must go rescue Kim who has recklessly decided to play "the game" at too young an age. At the very end of the film, it is heavily implied that Kim will go back to school and once he graduates, he won't need to be a spy since all wars will be over.

In fact, there's an interesting contrast (which the writers of the script presented but didn't know what to do with) between the "old school" swashbuckling Flynn, who gets a kick out of killing his enemies, and the "new school" Kim, who gets squeamish out of watching people die.

This is not completely out of keeping with the book. Over the course of the book, Kim develops a more complex understanding of morality than he starts out with. This is necessary since Kim is cocky almost to the point of arrogance; he is only reined in by his mentor, the extremely pacifistic lama. At the end of the book, the lama--who has obviously been worrying over Kim's participation in "the game"--has a vision which comforts him with the belief that Kim will be able to act as a spy without losing his soul. (At the end of the film, the confused script-writers have the lama die. They obviously couldn't make up their minds whether to be pro-War or pro-pacifism. All they knew is children should have cozy lives.)

In the book, the lama's influence keeps Kim from turning into a little sociopath with no moral sense or direction except the desire to outwit people. In the film, the implication is that the lama represents a nice New Agey way to think for boys who won't have to go to war anymore.

Wishful, post-WII thinking. And, considering the instant inception of the Cold War, rather naive. But Kim is a child and, as a child, he must be protected!

And the infantilization begins.

The one major factor in the film's favor is Dean Stockwell. It is impossible for a late-20th century product like me not to associate Dean Stockwell-the-child with Dean Stockwell-the-adult. (Especially since at age 14, Stockwell already had that borderline look of amused insolence down pat.) I see Kim and I think . . . Al! From Quantum Leap. And they aren't that different. Kim has that Buddhist edge. But the kindness masked by insouciance coupled with incredible energy is pure Kim/Al. And Stockwell does it very well.

So, Kim didn't grow up to be a businessman. He grew up to work in a top-secret laboratory doing science experiments that result in time-altering adventures.

The latter really is much more likely.

Time Travel Returns

After a one week vacation, the Mike-Kate Video Club has returned to reviewing time travel movies and shows--this week, Back to the Future!

Next week--Stargate!!

How Scarecrow & Mrs. King is Like Bones

I confess I'm a Scarecrow & Mrs. King fan. I was a fan when a youngster, and I still find the show completely viewable.

Granted, the plot is a bit same-old/same-old (which spy will they chase this week?!). And the dialog is nothing extraordinary (this is still 80's television when shows with whiplash dialog like Barney Miller were still considered somewhat unusual). There are hints, now and again, that the writers would have liked to go in a Lois & Clark tongue-in-cheek direction but overall they stick to their mandate: straight plots with clear objectives.

The acting is pretty respectable. Kate Jackson is quite good. Bruce Boxleitner knows what he is doing/what the part calls for (since watching older spy shows, I've gotten a better sense of what type of character he is emulating). The problem here is that someone like Joe Penny exudes ultra-charisma just by standing around. Bruce B. doesn't much.

Having said that, after rewatching Season 1 recently, I formed the opinion that my attraction to the show is that it is incipient Bones. That is probably why I loved it as a youngster except Bones hadn't shown up yet. Now that Bones has shown up, I see the similarities.

1. It's all about the couple.

I've commented before that I like romances where the hero and heroine are trapped together--literally or, like Mulder and Scully, through a job or shared information. Unlike Castle, both Bones and Scarecrow are ALL about the main heterosexual couple--nobody else, really. (I like Castle but there's too many potential ex-es which gets tiresome.) Whether consummated or not, the show IS the relationship.

2. Both parties bring something to the relationship.

Both the hero and heroine contribute to the relationship as individuals. Amanda King is quirky, talkative, funny with a strong practical streak and a strong sense of morality. Rather surprising for an 80's show, her responses as an individual take precedent over her responses as an INDEPENDENT WOMAN and even as a MOTHER. Good writers, in my view, ask, "How would this character react?" rather than "What cause am I supposed to be defending?" It is easy to take the former approach for granted with Temperance Brennan. It is commendable that it happened with Mrs. King.

3. The guys get to rescue the gals. 

What's a good romance without a rescue?

Now, I love romances, but I do have some standards. I tend to avoid romances where the heroines spend the whole time trying to force the heroes to appreciate/notice them ("I'M AS GOOD AS YOU!"). And I don't even bother with romances where the heroes don't appreciate the heroines. And I don't like romances where the heroines just represent the prize that the heroes get for conquering the bad guy.

I like the hero and heroine to admire each other. And I like the heroine to care about the hero. And since I'm a woman, and I'm watching these shows from a woman's perspective, I really want to see the hero express that he cares.

Nothing does that better than a rescue scene (as long as it is done right).

The classic done-correctly rescue scene is Cary Grant rescuing Ingrid Bergman in Notorious: the scene where Cary Grant enters the house of the bad spy guy and carries out Ingrid Bergman in front of the bad spy guy's compatriots. Every director over the age of forty copies it at least once.

The reason it is so perfect is that the heroine needs to be rescued for perfectly legitimate reasons. She isn't stuck in her bad-spy husband's house by accident or because she is a fool or because she got into a pique or because she's trying to manipulative the hero or because she swooned or because she's too ladylike/dainty/frightened/clueless to get herself out. She's in the house as a spy following the directives of her handler (Grant) in order to help the United States. She is being drugged against her will, and she has held out for as long as she can.

And the hero rescues her against logic but not against reason. He loves her. He also owes her. And he is very clever and logical and ruthless about what he does to get her out.

Dorothy Sayers wrote several mysteries where she tackles the problem of a heroine feeling such an overwhelming sense of obligation to the hero that the relationship can't return to balance. The heroine becomes infantalized, a little girl who is always being protected by her daddy-figure.

Good rescues avoid this. Notorious avoids this.

Bones and  Scarecrow avoid this.

Scarecrow actually does the Notorious scene. And Amanda King is not infantalized as a result. She held out against questioning while on a legitimate errand to help Scarecrow. Rescuing her is part of his job. It is also romantically done.

Bones has a great rescue scene in the first season ("Two Bodies in the Lab") where the wounded Booth finds Bones who is about to be killed by a bad guy masquerading as a serial killer. Bones is in this situation because she is about to produce forensic evidence that will put the bad guy away. She fights back. Booth rescues her because it is his job, and (typical for Booth), he feels responsible for people who work for him. And it is romantically done.

Yet nobody becomes a child as a result. Bones is grateful as is Amanda King, and they both express their gratitude non-defensively. But the relationship is easily restored to balance because the risks and rewards of the relationship are taken for granted.

4. I believe in the domestic side of the relationship.

This is actually something that separates Bones and Scarecrow from X-Files. In X-Files, the context is so overwhelmingly important, it's hard to imagine Mulder and Scully away from it. Which is good--because how on earth would that relationship function absent a conspiracy? And although I like both Castle and Beckett, I don't really believe in my heart of hearts that Beckett would ever be comfortable in that relationship on a domestic level (I think Castle would actually made a very good husband; I just don't see Beckett agreeing).

But with Bones, I can completely see Bones and Booth making things work in ANY situation: on a vacation, with a baby, buying a home, figuring out schools, planning date nights, managing money . . . Likewise, Bruce B. does a fairly good job in Scarecrow playing a man who thinks he wants to be a secret agent but really would rather have a semi-normal relationship with a down-to-earth housewife from Arlington.

Because in the end, the personal relationship isn't just about champagne and chocolates. It involves things like getting the vacuum cleaner to work. And wondering what the heck to do about the SRS light in the Honda. And fighting over the remote. And the number of television couples who I think can actually deal with this stuff is rather short.

Having said this . . . in terms of television viewing . . . 

5. It's all about the job.

Shows which focus exclusively on the relationship almost inevitably end up being "revolving door" shows: now-he-is-dating-someone-else, now-she-is-dating-someone-else, now-he-is-dating-someone-else.

Oh, who cares.

Shows where the relationship remains intact but the focus is on how much the characters love each other aren't much better. Dharma & Greg managed precisely because every episode was about other stuff (and it couldn't have lasted much beyond five seasons). Lois & Clark suffered in the second half of the third to fourth seasons when the relationship became the focus, rather than the job.

Shows like Bones and Scarecrow & Mrs. King keep the focus on the job. Even in the Bones episode ender, "The End in the Beginning," both Bones and Booth (now a couple) own a business together. They go about their lives exactly in the same way--only with sex. But the workable-ness of their relationship hasn't altered. The relationship can be taken for granted, can be successfully explored, precisely because it ISN'T the focus.

The most romantic romances aren't about the romance.

Go figure.