Survey in depth of Method acting, focusing largely on film, by the film and theater critic of The Boston Phoenix. No two people agree on what Method acting is. While Vineberg gives a historical background to the style, ranging from Stanislavsky's work with the Moscow Art Theatre to Broadway's proletariat Group Theatre and later the Actors Studio, this finely spaded loam only prepares the way for his detailed story of the Method's absolute grip on American film acting over the past four decades. He explains that earlier actors, such as Barbara Stanwyck and Burgess Meredith, were unwittingly using a Method approach with their ``uncluttered, uncalculated approach to acting—acting that doesn't announce itself as acting.'' In Stanwyck's early films, lines spring from her and pierce her fellow players as if from life, not from a script, and Vineberg goes through her each performance for our delectation. After a rich review of the works (and acting) of Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan, he gives a role-by- role career history of Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Blythe Danner, and Jack Nicholson, among many others. Of these, only Nicholson's entry feels scanted. A spacious book, this takes on a tremendous amount of material and allows Vineberg to highlight forgotten or overlooked roles (Brando's homosexual Army officer in Reflections in a Golden Eye, Dean's TV features, Nicholson's superb—and Method-rich—cop in The Border). These actors re-create real emotions and have been geared for it in part, Vineberg says, by the psychological darkness of the American stage following WW II, with the great plays of O'Neill, Williams, and Miller. Major, and as seismically sensitive as a Brando soliloquy. (Sixteen-page photo insert—not seen.)
Pub Date: July 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-02-872685-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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