Actors and Movies

Analysis of the movie "Babel" based on Stanley Cavell's "Audience, Actor, and Star" and Alexander Sesonske's "Space, Time, and Motion in Film"

Brad Pitt became famous as a screen actor when he played a starring role in the Dark Side of the Sun in 1988. Like most famous "stars" he is well-known in some of the roles he played in his movies. According to Cavell, "the screen actor is essentially not an actor at all: he is the subject of the study..." In popular culture the roles these stars have played are overshadowed by the fact that they played them. The audience knows immediately what to expect from the movie through the actors' names.The characters they play in the story are created by them, not unlike in plays where the characters roles have already been established.

In the example given in the essay, King Lear has been portrayed in flesh just like he is in the story. While in some movies, the roles are specifically made to fit a certain actor or the actor's personality is intertwined with the character he or she plays in the movie. The American tourist is not just Cate Blanchett's husband in the movie anymore but he is also the Brad Pitt who has played several roles in other movies at the same time. How he portrayed his role in Babel is a product of his experience and the writer's and director's concept of the role. The same thing goes for most screen actors. It is not only what the author creates but how real people are in real life.

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Movies differ from drama in that a movie script is different in form and essence from the play in written form. Both can manipulate the sense of time and motion. But unlike the plays, movies can experiment with more techniques with the aid of visual symbols and music, including the dialogues and sound effects. Unlike other forms of literature, the transition from one time frame to another is easier in films because it uses different aspects of sense perception. A story can use description and narration but what usually takes less than a minute to show in a film is described in several sentences. The audience can focus on any part of the story in the movie depending on what elements are contained in the frame in front of them.