Jeff Richardson teaches film history classes for actors at the Maggie Flanigan Studio. In this video Jeff discusses why actor training needs to include film history and why actors needs to have a plan for regularly viewing classic films.
Film History Class for Actors – Jeff Richardson – Call (917) 789-1599
Why Actor Training Should Include Classic Films
One thing I constantly hear from young actors is: “I wish I’d seen more films.” They love movies, they say, but they don’t think they’ve seen enough of the classics. And it makes perfect sense that they would feel this way. Most of them want to act in film. Watching movies not only provides inspiration and influence, but it gives them a shared knowledge base with others in the industry. The filmmaking world is a world of film buffs. Unless you’re planning to get into the business through the backdoor of professional wrestling or reality television stardom, being able to talk about great films, filmmakers, and performances is an important skill. How well are you going to fit in at a meeting, audition, or film set if your entire knowledge of pre-2000 cinema consists of Titanic and Toy Story?
OK… so how does one watch more movies? That sounds like a silly question, but it’s not as simple as it seems. Having a catalog of films in your head doesn’t just happen overnight. I’m a huge movie buff – I teach a film history class at the Maggie Flanigan Studio, and even I can feel overwhelmed by what I haven’t seen. For a young actor, even one who’s always loved movies, their lifetime of film-watching isn’t going to equal that of an industry veteran 10, 20, or 30 years their senior. And, let’s face it: life is busy, and watching movies – especially classics – is a commitment. When busy days become busy weeks, etc., it’s not easy to spend your limited free time watching a strange old film outside your comfort zone.
So how to fix this “film shortage” problem? The first step is realizing that you have to make a viewing plan. And to do that, you need to learn something about film history to add to your actor training. Surveying a century of movies at random is not only inefficient, it’s likely to subtract from your enjoyment. You’ll get a lot more out of a classic film if you know a thing or two about its historical context, its cast and crew, its style, its reception and impact. In other words: why the film is considered a classic. By studying film history, you’ll gain an understanding of key periods, genres, and filmmakers, and, most importantly, you’ll have a crash course in your own interests. Once you know what appeals to you – and there absolutely is something for everyone – you can confidently create your own personalized film guide for future viewing. You’ll enjoy the films more and you’ll have more thoughts about them afterwards. Even just watching one film a week will steadily make a big difference. It’s a great method to kick start a purposeful, pleasurable film education that can continue for a lifetime.
Film History Class for Actors at the Maggie Flanigan Studio with Jeff Richardson
Film History Classes at Maggie Flanigan Studio
Learn more about the film history class with Jeff Richardson at the Maggie Flanigan studio, as well as the other acting classes and acting programs at the Maggie Flanigan Studio by visiting the programs page on the studio website ( http://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com ) or by calling 917-789-1599.
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via Why Actors Should Watch Classic Films
by Maggie Flanigan
Maggie Flanigan Studio - Alumni Nicole Villamil - Call (917) 789-1599[/caption]
Nadine Malouf, Jessica Love, and Nicole Villamil[/caption] Did she, like the others, take refuge there? Or did she disappear forever into the maw of America? As Inna tries to unearth the answers she gets trapped in a situation of her own. Ms. Majok is herself an immigrant, born in Poland. Her breakthrough play, “Ironbound,” produced at the Rattlestick in 2016, prefigured “queens” in dealing with the double disruption of being a woman who ventures, or is forced to flee, beyond the familiar discomforts of home. More recently, in the excellent “Cost of Living,” seen at Manhattan Theater Club in 2017, disability stood in for geographical and cultural alienation. In that play, two characters chafe against the way that a wheelchair, like color or language, can be a marker of disfavored status within the larger, normative society. But “queens,” which opened on Monday night in an LCT3 production at the Claire Tow Theater, is even more ambitious, if not as successful. When Inna (Sarah Tolan-Mee) arrives at the basement in 2017, the landlady, a Polish immigrant named Renia, recognizes her as someone who might be her own daughter, or herself. In a long flashback, we meet Renia (Ana Reeder) on the day she showed up in 2001 in desperate need. From there the story branches farther and farther afield. Much of the first act, which establishes the play’s fractured chronology, takes place as that younger Renia is provisionally welcomed into a polyglot ménage that includes icy Pelagiya (Jessica Love), tight-lipped Aamani (Nadine Malouf) and furious Isabela (Nicole Villamil). Isabela is packing her bags before returning to Honduras, where her daughter is waiting and her mother is dying. It is typical of Ms. Majok’s wit and empathy that Isabela evaluates each item of clothing not in terms of dollars but in terms of the number of low-wage hours it took to earn — and the number of hours away from her daughter it represents. A sweater that cost two hours is too dear to leave behind. The women are hilariously wary of the United States, of one another and especially of Renia, who won’t share her story. Still, the movement of the first act is from mistrust and recrimination to solidarity. When the roommates change into clubbing clothes to toast Isabela with whatever sad staples they can scrounge, the lamest farewell party ever becomes, briefly, one of the most joyous. Playing both ends of the scale like that is a distinctive trick Ms. Majok uses to release emotion without sentimentality. These women are tough, and not in a glamorous way: Their expectation of mistreatment is no pose and no metaphor. They are angry at the world yet nurture that anger, recognizing that in it may be the beginning of progress. Certainly there is no progress without it. This makes for thrilling writing. But as the play further complicates its story in the second and third acts, it loses control of its effects. We are offered too much information for the frame to contain, even if it’s vital: How Inna got from Ukraine to Queens after a six-month stop as a potential internet bride in Florida; what brought Renia to the basement and how she becomes its landlady. New characters come and go as well, their identities and stories blurred because they are played by the same actors who played the previous ones. After seeing “queens” and reading the script carefully I was still confused by many plot points. Confusion can be salient, of course, in plays about confusion, whether moral or existential. But “queens” isn’t squishy that way, so its confusion is subtractive. It may in fact be the result of cutting to keep the production under three hours. (The timing of the acts is lopsided.) If so, I think Ms. Majok would have done better to expand her scope rather than contract it. The material is so important, so ripe and so multi-stranded that it might have been better off as a marathon or a mini-series. Squeezed into its current shape it can do little more than check the boxes on its trenchant to-do list. This puts excess pressure on the production to provide coherence, but Danya Taymor’s direction opts for suggestiveness rather than clarity. The powerful set design by Laura Jellinek — dominated by a vast ceiling that lowers and lifts over the stage to create feelings of containment and freedom — is more successful in sculpting moods than in defining space or telling the story. (You are never sure where the doors to this basement are.) Action specified in the script is not always clear onstage: a problem of focus. And the fine performances, especially by Ms. Reeder and Ms. Tolan-Mee, dissipate under the excessive dramatic pressure. For all that, “queens” is still a notable work, or maybe several. It strikes at the heart of the immigrant experience, which is often unfair, one way or another. “You? Are lucky,” Renia tells one of the women. “Which means that maybe other people: not so much.” Welcome to America. This article appeared here originally: 
