1,010 posts
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Post by David J on Feb 22, 2016 23:45:51 GMT
He certainly has a thing about bending forward and brushing aside his jacket to put his hands on his hips like he means business every minute
Perhaps the bending is him preparing for Richard III or something
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Post by Nicholas on Feb 23, 2016 2:20:46 GMT
Always lose concentration when Fiennes is acting. Don't know one actor who plays up the hammy actor as much as Fiennes. I can hear the Fiennes commentary in his head. It goes something like... walk from table to bench purposefully, and pose. And deliver lines. Walk from bench to chair, how shall I walk? Yes let's do it purposefully and don't forget to hold chair in the pose that you only ever see on stage. And deliver lines, wow that was powerful text. Now walk from chair to table, I must do this purposefully and remember that pose as I lean on the table in a completely unnatural manner. Deliver lines and repeat. Hope this is not giving away a spoiler for anyone who has not seen see The Master Builder but I was dreading the set in act 1 with so many props for Fiennes. I do and don’t agree.
Fiennes definitely has that kind of ‘house style’ you describe, and at his worst, when he’s on auto-pilot, he absolutely does just by rote come on, enunciate the lines, deliver to the front and speak the speech, almost like those Victorian ‘acting’ scenes in Red Velvet. Apparently his Oedipus was hammy and actor-ly, and I agree that his Master Builder is too – over-mannered, over-studied and over-thinking every moment (esp. next to the vivacious Sarah Snook, I’ll say more on the overall production when I have the time but in a nutshell a bit MOR, I did like Fiennes well enough in it but it was a Fiennes-by-numbers performance).
But when he’s not on auto-pilot he’s able to toy with that actorliness in a really canny way, and it’s because he’s so classical and methodical that his best roles work. It’s why Man and Superman was great (part of the character was posturing and pretention, so performing as you describe set himself up as a punchline) and why Grand Budapest was great (everything you say about Fiennes is how that character lives his life, Fiennes brings depth and dignity to this pretentious ham), but also goes through everything from the terrifying, focused, recognisable precision of Amon Goeth to the precise poshness of Wallace and Gromit (and I’m going to go give myself a pat on the back for linking Schindler’s List with Curse of the Were-Rabbit). If you’ve seen the trailer for the new Coen Brothers film you’ll see it’s something, again, only someone with his classical skill-set and self-aware irony could pull off (and if you’ve not seen it, do yourself a favour: I've put it in a spoiler thing as I can't find a way to stop it putting the video in the middle of this all-important spiel, but it's well worth a watch {Spoiler - click to view}
).
On that note worth mentioning his current performance in A Bigger Splash, which is well worth watching to wash away (bad pun) the stiltedness of his Solness – he plays what could be a tedious ex-punk old-rocker trying to keep cool, but Fiennes, that classical behemoth, playing it wholly animalistically gives it a weird gravitas, makes his rambling rock anecdotes minor soliloquies, and makes the moments where he rocks out quite stunning indeed. There’s a scene where he preens along to a Rolling Stones song, and Fiennes brings with it a tragic methodicalness as if this really is his life, a dignity that it doesn’t deserve. So in short (ha!) I agree that Fiennes is everything you say he is, I just also think that mostly (this being a rare exception) that’s to his credit and to his favour – he’s good enough to tinker with that house style to give really canny, humane performances.
Plus, in Man and Superman you only see him behind a pillar, whilst in A Bigger Splash you see plenty of full frontal shots of his pillar.
Did I write all this just to make a bad penis joke? Quite possibly, yes.
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724 posts
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Post by Latecomer on Feb 23, 2016 19:17:41 GMT
I know what you mean Theatremonkey.....I was right up in the Gods and I just loved it! I think the fact that I had no clue where it was going was quite exciting and I really enjoyed all the performances....it was one of my highlights too!
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2,206 posts
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Post by theglenbucklaird on Feb 23, 2016 21:06:08 GMT
Always lose concentration when Fiennes is acting. Don't know one actor who plays up the hammy actor as much as Fiennes. I can hear the Fiennes commentary in his head. It goes something like... walk from table to bench purposefully, and pose. And deliver lines. Walk from bench to chair, how shall I walk? Yes let's do it purposefully and don't forget to hold chair in the pose that you only ever see on stage. And deliver lines, wow that was powerful text. Now walk from chair to table, I must do this purposefully and remember that pose as I lean on the table in a completely unnatural manner. Deliver lines and repeat. Hope this is not giving away a spoiler for anyone who has not seen see The Master Builder but I was dreading the set in act 1 with so many props for Fiennes. I do and don’t agree.
Fiennes definitely has that kind of ‘house style’ you describe, and at his worst, when he’s on auto-pilot, he absolutely does just by rote come on, enunciate the lines, deliver to the front and speak the speech, almost like those Victorian ‘acting’ scenes in Red Velvet. Apparently his Oedipus was hammy and actor-ly, and I agree that his Master Builder is too – over-mannered, over-studied and over-thinking every moment (esp. next to the vivacious Sarah Snook, I’ll say more on the overall production when I have the time but in a nutshell a bit MOR, I did like Fiennes well enough in it but it was a Fiennes-by-numbers performance).
But when he’s not on auto-pilot he’s able to toy with that actorliness in a really canny way, and it’s because he’s so classical and methodical that his best roles work. It’s why Man and Superman was great (part of the character was posturing and pretention, so performing as you describe set himself up as a punchline) and why Grand Budapest was great (everything you say about Fiennes is how that character lives his life, Fiennes brings depth and dignity to this pretentious ham), but also goes through everything from the terrifying, focused, recognisable precision of Amon Goeth to the precise poshness of Wallace and Gromit (and I’m going to go give myself a pat on the back for linking Schindler’s List with Curse of the Were-Rabbit). If you’ve seen the trailer for the new Coen Brothers film you’ll see it’s something, again, only someone with his classical skill-set and self-aware irony could pull off (and if you’ve not seen it, do yourself a favour: I've put it in a spoiler thing as I can't find a way to stop it putting the video in the middle of this all-important spiel, but it's well worth a watch ).
On that note worth mentioning his current performance in A Bigger Splash, which is well worth watching to wash away (bad pun) the stiltedness of his Solness – he plays what could be a tedious ex-punk old-rocker trying to keep cool, but Fiennes, that classical behemoth, playing it wholly animalistically gives it a weird gravitas, makes his rambling rock anecdotes minor soliloquies, and makes the moments where he rocks out quite stunning indeed. There’s a scene where he preens along to a Rolling Stones song, and Fiennes brings with it a tragic methodicalness as if this really is his life, a dignity that it doesn’t deserve. So in short (ha!) I agree that Fiennes is everything you say he is, I just also think that mostly (this being a rare exception) that’s to his credit and to his favour – he’s good enough to tinker with that house style to give really canny, humane performances.
Plus, in Man and Superman you only see him behind a pillar, whilst in A Bigger Splash you see plenty of full frontal shots of his pillar.
Did I write all this just to make a bad penis joke? Quite possibly, yes.
Firstly, so proud that Nicholas quoted me. On cloud nine 'ere. Even if he did piss on my bonfire.
Secondly, this must already be the largest quote of a quote post on the new board. When replying to this thread you must only use the quote button. Is there a limit of quotes that can be used?
Thirdly, love Fiennes really. At his best he is very good. Why I preferred Man and Superman. As long as Indira Varma was on stage I wasn't watching Fiennes ham it up.
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1,869 posts
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Post by Marwood on Mar 11, 2016 23:38:15 GMT
Have to agree with Parsley with this one (not helped by the plonker sat next to me who came in about 30 seconds before the start,obviously been biding his time in one of the Old Vic bars, then spread his legs out wide as if he was auditioning for Buster Gonad: The Movie then proceeded to sit there chewing gum, moaning about God knows what to his wife sat the other side, and nodding off before snapping to on the off-chance it was drinks time) but I'd had enough by the time the first interval came around, it wasn't particularly bad but I didn't care what happened to Solness, a play where a 23 year old girl comes back and asks our 'hero' to remember the time 10 years ago when he kissed her and called her princess made me think that this really wasn't the play for me so I left (Fiennes acting was OK, but some of the other actors seemed to be over doing it with some Acorn Antiques style acting too (not mentioning any names, #cough cough 'James Dreyfus' and the old bloke who had the 'attack at the the beginning))
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1,179 posts
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Post by joem on Mar 12, 2016 23:57:54 GMT
I have for many years considered this one of my favourite players, and have been lucky to see it with some heavyweights (Alan Bates, Patrick Stewart), so was keen to see what Mr Fiennes would make of the rather nasty Mr Solness - the Macbeth of the fjords, a plausible but fatally ambitious protagonist. The answer is quite well, although without the depth achieved by the aforementioned. With Patrick Stewart of course authenticity wasn't a problem - it was art imitating life, Lisa Dillon (his then paramour) played the youthful interloper into the unhappily empty family nest.
If you analyse the text carefully I believe it is impossible to take a literal view of the action without concluding that the girl is a bonkers bunny burner and the master builder a gaga old goat. Nothing else can explain the ridiculous obsession of a preteen girl with a much older man, nurtured for ten years and then galvanised into action. Or the older man's belief that there are dark forces helping him realise his unspoken desires. Once you accept this then the problem of realism is resolved. Or the girl's constant demands for him to give her a castle, "Now!".
Unfortunately the production does seem to make a literal interpretation of events, reducing its credibility. There are some bad decisions which undermine it further, notably having a girl in her twenties speak with an abrupt, child-like delivery. This is no longer a twelve year old, she is a woman in her twenties who knows what she wants and has come to get it and one would expect a more mature way of trying to seduce the old goat.
Fiennes acting style is the triumph of charisma over detail. What this means is that whilst he seems to telegraph some of his moves in advance he gets away with it because he is so watchable. He is also good at the sideways look and the raised eyebrow; you do have to be quite close to the stage to get this though.
Interesting set which I suppose is meant to mean something but haven't quite worked it out yet - except for the final collapse which seems obvious.
I stood for the standing ovation, reluctantly, because it was the only way to see the stage. The audience clearly loved it. I enjoyed it, but it is a flawed production.
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