presentation

does Sylvester Stallone use of method acting make him an auteur

Speaker: An auteur can be so invested in the roles that they play and you may miss the piece of method acting that they care using I.E. it can simply be adding a limp to the character they're playing. The example of when we see Sylvester do this is when he has got an injury on Rambo and he is stumbling around. (Item 10)

speaker:
Sylvester Stallone is an American actor and director who has made many films in the action genre. He is well known for films such as Rambo and Rocky in which he showed his specific style that has made him well known world wide.

Play clip of age interview (min 1:45-1:50) (Item 5)

Speaker:
This is a prime example of how Sylvester Stallone continues to defy the odds keeping to his fitness routines at the late age of 60. It shows how Sylvester can use his method acting in the way of implementing his real life into the film as he is playing a sick older fighter, despite being used to playing the hero in these types of films. It shows how Stallone uses Stanislavski's techniques all throughout his acting. (Item 6)

Speaker:

With a film like rocky, Stallone has to adapt his acting style and film style, whilst still maintaining his auteur style of an all action hero, however in creed we see how Stallone turns this character to the younger generation. (Item 7) This is not the only time that we see Stallone use his method acting to maintain a character. We see a lot of overcoming he odds within his films and this is exemplified in his role in Copland. For this role Stallone had to gain 40 pounds, a complete opposite to his lifestyle we have come accustomed too, yet he is still able to keep his Auteur style whilst making the character relatable to the audience as he looks like the everyday man in this film. (Item 9)

Biography.com " A lot of your fans may be surprised to hear you say you can relate to these aspects of Rocky" "Some of it I can relate to some of it I can understand" (Item 4)

Speaker: This quote is important as it shows how Sylvester uses the Method acting of Uta Hagen where he you use your own experiences to build a deeper connection with the character. This is because he states how he knows what its like to give up on the world.


Play clip from Rambo to support the arguments : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQxD_aBP5U0 (Item 3)

Show newspaper article headline " Fat role Sylvester Stallone goes from 'Rocky' to chunky for his heavyweight part in 'Cop Land' (Item 8)

Speaker: This shows Sylvester Stallone's use of method acting as people have come accustomed to seeing Stallone as a body builder and now in the film Copland he is shown as someone who is more relatable and the quote shows how Stallone is adapting his everyday life in order to fit into the role of the character that he is playing.

Show the trailer from the film Copland (Item 1)

Speaker: As you can see this film is clearly evidence of how Sylvester Stallone uses method acting due to the fact that he is considerably unhealthier than what we have become accustomed to with him. This shows he is a method actor as he has completely changed his lifestyle that he has always lived in order to get into the role of the character.

Voice into acting book quote " "In the organic approach to performance we aim to integrate impulse, language, mind, body and voice so that we recreate a human experience in performance that is coming form the whole human being, not just the conscious brain"
(Item 11)

Speaker: This is a key quote as it shows how despite many people seeing Sylvester as a one way actor, he can do many different styles of acting and in fact he is underappreciated for his acting skills. This is because in multiple films we see him change his tone appearance and his mental state in order to further a role and to give a better viewing experience.

Exam question answer for La Haine

Compare the attitudes to poverty conveyed in the films you have studied for this topic. [35]

Within the film La Haine we see how poverty is portrayed as aggression and violence with animalistic references appearing multiple times throughout the film. An example of this is when Said and Hubert are arrested and interrogated in the police station. We see a long shot of the two stood in a police cell. The mise en scene of this shot is that it looks like they are caged animals. This is shot using a eye line angle to make it almost a Point of view shot like you are watching a documentary about these characters. The significance of this is that it gives this a realistic feel, showing how the brutality of the authorities is almost an everyday thing. This is shown also in the interrogation scene when the two offerers have then chained up to the chairs and are grabbing them by the necks. This shows how people who have been brought up in poverty are looked down upon by others in society and by the authorities within France.

film a2 sylvester stallone catalogue

Ethan Gillies


does Sylvester Stallone use of method acting make him an auteur

Item 1: Copland (1997)

This is the first film that i have chosen as in this film we see how Sylvester Stallone uses method acting in the sense of moving out of his normal lifestyle to put himself out there in a role that you wouldn't normally see him in. This is the film that i will base most of my theory on as he goes above and beyond to get in-versed in the role. He does this by putting on 40 pounds and by playing a character that has been described as a doofus, as opposed to his Rambo like heroes.

Item 2: Creed (2015)

I have chosen this film as it shows how even in his years where most actors have retired and are living their later years at home sylvester Stallone is still staying in shape training for his role in creed when he is 69 years of age. He does this by training in the ring behind the scenes with fellow actor Michael B. Jordan. He also does weight training very morning and afternoon in intensive workouts focusing on every muscle group, showing how sylvester has determination even at the later stages of his acting career.

Item 3: Rambo ; First blood (1982)

The final film that i have chosen is the original Rambo as there is method acting present as Sylvester has to put himself into the mind of a Vietnam war veteran named John Rambo. Also he has to traina and have a diverse lifestyle in order for him to physically fit into the role he is playing. To get the ideal body type Sylvester worked with 2 time mr olympia Francesco  Columbu.

Interview 

Item 4 : 

https://www.biography.com/news/sylvester-stallone-biography-interview

Within this interview their is a question asked "A lot of your fans might be surprised to hear you say you can relate with these aspects of Rocky Balboa" Sylvester Stallone replies some of it i relate to and some of it i can understand. he states that when we first see rocky he wants to see Adrienne again and he is ready. Sylvester says he can relate to this as he knows how it is to loose someone you love and to feel like theres no hope for you in this world. This is important as it shows method acting through Uta Hagen where the actor uses his own experiences to build a deeper connection with the character 


Item 5 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JedaPfpQng&t=111s

theres a quote along the lines of 60, what?  The significance of this quote from the interview on Creed is that it shows how Sylvester Stallone knows that he is technically past his prime in terms of his fighting ability, yet he is working hard to make films even at his late age. This shows how he has adapted to a new role of being a boxing coach not the fighter himself.

Item 6 : 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVLQLaHgFxs

This shows how Sylvester Stallone fits into the role that he once previously played as a fierce fighting machine to now playing him as a sick old man teaching a younger fighter who reminds him of a younger him. This is useful as to play a sick character is difficult enough and made even harder when the character is an american icon. Within this we can see how Sylvester used Stanislavski's techniques in his acting.


Website

item 7 : 
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/01/why-sylvester-stallone-deserves-an-oscar/424863/

In this article it states how with Creed, Stallone took his most beloved character and turned it over to a younger generation. In the film Creed he has to make the character in Rocky turn for a lost character to his old self whilst not overplaying the character and being in the supporting actor role. This is method acting in the sense that he has to change from what he knows and what he is best at in order to appeal to a different market. This is useful because it means that Sylvester is able to adapt his acting style to what the role is, rather than being stuck in a one dimensional method as many critics state.

Item 8 : 
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/aug/17/fat-role-sylvester-stallone-goes-from-rocky-to/

This is a prime example of Sylvester Stallone's use of method acting to make him an auteur. It shows how people have come accustomed to seeing sylvester Stallone as a man with a body builder type build, however in the film Copland he becomes more relatable to the everyday man. this is supported as in the interview it says he prods his belly and it jiggles just as the average looking men of the world experience. This is a very useful source as it means that Sylvester is able to change from his normal self to fit into a role, and thus showing how his life changes with certain roles in order to get into character.

Item 9 :       http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/After+weight+gain+Sylvester+Stallone+gained+pounds+play+role+overweight+sheriff+drama+Copland/6206107/story.html

This also shows his method acting and the pure extent in which he pursued this role. It shows how he can go away from the norm and his comfort zone in order to exemplify a role and to allow the role be more relatable because there art many cops who are 200 pounds of pure muscle. Overall sylvester gained 40 pounds for the role.


Book

Item 10 :
Book title: On method acting

This book explains that actors are so invested in their roles it means that method a actor it can simply be adding a limp, This is key to sylvester being a method actor as in numerous roles we see him get injury after injury, and we see how sylvester changes his persona based on the film. E.G. in Rambo we see him just shake off injuries like they are nothing but in Copland we see the real effects of this injury throughout the film. i.e deafening gun shots. this is useful as it shows how in every role he plays he does some form of method acting. Whether it be in Rambo where he gets shot or in Copland where he changes his appearance.

Item11 :
Book title: Voice into acting

"In the organic approach to performance we aim to integrate impulse, language, mind, body and voice so that we recreate a human experience in performance that is coming form the whole human being, not just the conscious brain" This is a good quote to us because it explains a kind of method acting in which the actor shifts his daily thoughts and uses past experiences to create a full character performance in which we see Sylvester Stallone do on multiple occasions throughout the films.

Item 12 :
Book title: Method acting reconsidered

"Method actors find characterisation from the text and then fix their performances accordingly" This is a key quote to use as it shows how method acting is used in all films in some way but certain films are more subtle. This is also good quote for the book to use as i can talk about how all method actors interpret text in different ways and thus will reform the roles in their own ways to match how they interpret it.



Rejected items

https://www.popworkouts.com/sylvester-stallone-expendables-workout/

This is a magazine article that describes a workout that Sylvester Stallone was doing for one of his biggest films. This is one of my rejected items as it does not apply to method acting for the films that i have chose as i have chosen Creed, Rambo and Copland not the expendables. This does show Sylvester's devotion to roles that he plays however as many actors would not be willing to do the workouts that he does for roles, however it does not apply to my specific films.

http://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/452148/Interview-Sylvester-Stallone-reveals-why-he-is-risking-his-reputation-with-a-one-man-show


I have used this for rejected items as it is not as good for showing method acting in Sylvester Stallone  as it is talking more about his life and working with other people and working on films more than walking about how he uses acting techniques or past experience to get a better understanding of his characters. Also i have rejected this item as he talks about how he makes older characters for younger generations which is a form of method acting as he is adapting his films and roles to fit in with a generation 40 years younger than him however i feel that there are better examples of his method acting.

independant film

David Brent: Life on the road.

• David Brent: life on road made around $5,511,343 or around £4,371,549.
• It is a sequel to the very popular tv mockumentry 'The Office' very famous from 2001-2003.
• Ricky Gervais did a method in advertising where he only showed positive feedback and blanked out all negative. I.E. he shared hundreds of positive reviews all over his twitter.
• Despite it being a success within the Uk markets, as expected, you can consider it to be a flop within the Australian market, making only around $AU379,118 in its first week after being shown in 219 Australian screens.
• I believe that this film was not as successful in Australia as the amount of advertisement that Life on the road did in Australia was drastically less than the amount the did within the UK.
• Also David Brent has lost its factor that makes the film relatable to the audience.
• 61% Approval Rating on rotten tomatoes
• Idependant film

US Blockbuster

                                                                      Deadpool

•  Deadpools budget was around 58 million USD which is relatively low budget for a super hero movie. 
• Not only did it have Ryan Reynolds starring as deadpan, it also featured Ed Skrein and Morena Baccarin who has featured in Gotham city so fans of these actors will come and see deadpan due to the recognisable names in the superhero scene. 
• Deadpool featured many different types of genres in it from Romance to comedy, to action to science fiction. 
• the film made around $760 million which is more than they were originally expecting form a Deadpool film.
• The production company for the film was the well known 20th century fox 
• The main audience for this film were young adults and fans of Marvel/X-men comics.This is because the rating for the movie is 15 rating.
• As Deadpool was a marvel based movie , there was lots of advertisement and hype around the film. The main focus of the advertisements were on the trailer getting on tv.
• This film was released in Feburary 10th in the UK

• .The trailer for Deadpool was a huge success on its own getting around 42 million views and got people extremely excited about the film, leading to people speaking about the film an very quickly word spread about the movie.
• On the website IMDB Deadpool was given a rating of 8.1/10 so people who were initially sceptical about seeing the film will now be enticed to see it.
• Deadpool had one of the most interesting promotional campaigns of recent times from Ryan Reynolds massaging Conan O'brien with Panda tears to Deadpool having his own Tinder account to engage the public
• Deadpool was in the 20 films nominated for the special effects oscar meaning that it would attract more people to the film
• Deadpool got a good reputation for having good special effect team so it made more people watch it after all the reviews came out.
• on the trailer for deadpool, there is a lot of visual effects that entices people as it seems like an all action film that a lot of people like in the modern world of film.
• the fact that you cannot tell that cgi is even used in the film and how reading upon it, it seems that a lot of people were surprised to see how much of he fight scenes actually were shows great skill in the cgi creators.
• The vfx make the scene go from a regular fight scene to a fighting spectacle.

short film and analysis

Our group did a short horror/ thriller sequence of a man stalking a woman and eventually bringing her to her doom. The lighting for the casual parts where highly but as the clips sped up and the drums became more vivant the lighting shifts to low-key. As the victim in this sequence becomes more trapped the video becomes more blurry. We decided to do this as it seems as if you are in the same situation as the character and it shows how panicky she is how everything is a blur. We used many different types of hots form long shots to close ups, to high shots to low shots. We used a key hole shot which is intertextuality of the film 'The Devils Backbone' to create more tension within the shot.

2 scenes on the shining

This scene starts of with a tracking shot going backwards of Jack walking up the stairs at the same speed as the character. This is done as it makes it seem more eery if you are following him, knowing that he is up to do something bad, creating tension between the viewer and the scene. The colour yellow is most prominent here. Yellow is known for spontaneousness and unstableness so this scene could be relating to what is going on in her mind. The part where Jack is hacking down the door with an axe is where you see him take up the power position, where he decides whether or no his wife lives. The part where he is axing down the door shows the woman screaming for her life showing how deranged jack had become as it is almost as if he enjoyed hearing this. The scene where he pokes his head through the gap of the axe broken door and says "here's Johnny" is a referance to a famous tv show host Johnny Carson. The close-up of Jacks face allows you to see all of his emotions and almost allows you to stare directly into his eyes to see his madness.

The next scene is of jack following Wendy up the stairs very slowly. Although Jack seems to be the more dominant character throughout the movie, in this scene Wendy is higher up the stairs than Jack showing that she has the power in this situation, coupled by her holding the weapon over jack showing her dominance. The shot initially begins with a tracking shot at the same time as the two characters walking up the stairs it is shot using a hand held camera to make to make the scene seem a lot more interactive with the audience and to allow the person watching to feel what it is like to be in the situation. It goes from a point of view from jack to and overhead shoulder shot. The shot could have been changed to make it so that you see how jack is looking up to Wendy and how Wendy is looking down at Jack. When someone looks down it can be because they are intimidated or they simply do not want to look someone in the face. This could symbolise that Wendy feels Jack is being aggressive and assertive which is backed up by the facial expression of grunting teeth. The rule of thirds is prominent as it switches to Wendy being in the middle to Jack being in the middle of the shot indication how Jack has taken over, perhaps a metaphor for the way that Jack took over Wendy's life and sent her to a hotel in the middle of nowhere.