A million years ago in the age of silent films, a popular actor on Broadway was hired by one of the film studios to make his first film. After signing his contract, he left the studio head’s office and went directly to the studio’s equipment facilities to check out one of their film cameras because he wanted to take it home and dismantle it to figure out how it worked. What that actor, Buster Keaton, learned that night about the film camera he would use to create a body of work, which would influence both comic and dramatic actors and filmmakers for generations to follow and still does to this day.
One great filmmaker who followed was Alfred Hitchcock, whose understanding of the film camera resulted in his always directing his actors to play their love scenes like murder scenes and their murder scenes like love scenes. What did Hitchcock understand about the film camera that would lead him to give directions like that on every movie he made?
What does another great filmmaker who has followed understand about the film camera that has allowed him, time and time again, to create with his actors some of the film industry’s most unexpected film performances of the past 20 years? Whether or not you like all of
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