Talk:Method acting

Improvement of the article, August 2016

I've just updated the article substantially. Much of the material I've imported with adjustments from my work on Konstantin Stanislavski. I've cleaned up the sources, removed most of the low-grade ones (there are still a few that I've kept for the time being). I've also written a new lede, based on the introduction in Krasner (2000b). As per standard scholarly treatments, no one practitioner defines the subject. Meisner, Adler, Hagen are just as much a part of this tradition as Stasberg. Since most of my work has been to clean up what was there and organise it into a more coherent narrative, I haven't yet looked at a substantial treatment of the approaches in common, nor given any substantial time to defining the variations between them. Ultimately, rather than stressing the internecine squabbles between the different parties (that scene in Life of Brian comes to mind), which often amount to little more than the vicissitudes of marketing, the whole tradition ought to be placed within the broader context of 20th-century actor-training—Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Jacques Copeau, Jerzy Grotowski, Dario Fo, Eugenio Barba, which isn't even to mention all of the various types of post-Method experimental companies in the USA. There also needs to be a section treating the way in which it moved from theatre into the cinema. The list of secondary sources should provide a good starting place for anyone who would like to make a contribution to that process. I've standardized citations in the MLA author-date format (see Konstantin Stanislavski for an example), in order to facilitate multiple citations from the same source and bundling (placing all citations for a sentence at the end of the sentence in a single footnote). I was going to put the "list of method actors" thing in a separate list article, but I can't really see the point on reflection. So, I'll put that information on the Archive 2 page of this talk page, for anyone who wishes to develop a List of Method actors article. (NB: we shouldn't be using the term "practitioner" for that--that word means someone who develops their own unique theory and practice).  • DP •  ^{huh?} 02:11, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Monochrome Monitor, I appreciate that you were doing what you understood to be for the best and trying to improve the article, but I've reversed your edits. I am happy to discuss them further with you here, but that last edit moved from a definition that was sourced with scholarly & reliable articles/books, to one that distorts what they say. I appreciate that your sense of it is different. I'm just gathering a few bits together & will explain further in a moment...  • DP •  ^{huh?} 03:29, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Whoops, I didn't read your nice comment and now I feel bad. I added quite a bit to the article myself and clarified the difference between method and Method, which appears to have been lost. Yes, that definition of method was sourced. There are also sources saying the Earth is flat, that doesn't make it so. Anyway, the real meaning of method is explained here. [1] The definition we have now is (as explained in that article) a misconception. Your characterization of the different schools as squabbles between one school is retrospective and arguably revisionist. We place all three within the context of non-classical acting in the US, yes. But confusing The Method and method acting only makes things more complicated. For example the source which says method acting is controversial is obviously referring to The Method in particular. Anyway, these schools were and are quite separate. Look at the Meisner and Adler school websites, they make this clear. The most famous method actor, Marlon Brando, denied having anything to do with The Method. (he studied under Adler)--Monochrome_Monitor 03:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, you replied while I was writing what I've just pasted in below. The trouble is, it isn't a misconception. Please don't revert. It's sourced. I just checked Google books to see if you could preview -- you can't see the article, but you can at least confirm its titile--it refers to all three practitioners. They're not separate. Anyhow, here's the first response:

I left you a message on your talk page in relation to the John Garfield article, because your edit history notes confused me. I couldn't see what you were objecting to. I then took a look in the edit history for this article, and that became clearer. There are a few things that I think might help.

Firstly, remember that our purpose here isn't to conduct original research, but to represent the subject via citations with reliable, third-party sources. Krasner wrote the article on Method Acting in Actor Training (which has a chapter on the other approaches I detailed above). He also edited the volume Method Acting Reconsidered. He's about as reliable and third-party as we could get.

Secondly, I'm afraid that your sense of it might be that which is reflecting "popular opinion". The attempts by each strand to define themselves (that is, non-'third-party') often invovled misrepresentations. Cataloguing that on each side would take a looooong time, but to indicate just some of them: the idea that you can distinguish strasberg from adler as emotion vs imagination is incorrect. they both use imagination. they both use emotion. only, in slightly different ways. the same is true of the yawn-fest that is the meisners sniping at the strasberg methods and vice versa. they both use imagination to relate to the given circumstances. they are both interested in releasing the flow of impulses. the repetition exercise is almost identical in purpose to the song exercise, though obviously via different procedures. and all involved share basic and fundamental assumptions about what acting is, what theatre is, the function of art--what scholars might call their "ideology". they all in varying ways misrepresent stanislavski, both to align and to distinguish themselves, or the others. To compund the problem even further, those who have not experienced training under any of them often misrepresent one or all of them. The idea that any of them recommend going out to live as a homeless person in order to play one, for example, is nonsense. Stanislavski tried it for himself really, really early on, when he was still an amateur actor and long before he founded the MAT. Strasberg misrepresents him on that score. As Sharon Carnicke demonstrates at considerable length and in great detail, we shouldn't take Strasberg's stories as a literal representation of what actually happened--they are more akin to parables for a pedagogical purpose.

The upshot of that is, that while the lede I reverted to is incomplete, it's the non-partisan line. The Method isn't "Strasberg's", even if he's keen to say it is. And Meisner's approach is just as much a part of that tradition, even if he's keen to evolve his own brand as the Meisner Technique. This isn't to say that what each encourage the actor to do is identical, since it obviously isn't. But it's all Method. There is, incidently, a similar problem with "Naturalism" and Stanislavski.

Thirdly, though, I'd like to point you towards this: WP:CWW. It says that if you're copying material from elsewhere in Wikipedia, for copyright reasons, you have to attribute it to the place from which you took it. I appreciate that it's likely that you didn't know this, or felt that the borrowing was somewhat slight, but you added things that I've written elsewhere (here). I'm not attempting a J'Accuse. I was rather surprised to find it in this article, as I didn't remember putting it there, particularly since it was surrounded with some inaccuracies (namely, in no sense whatsoever is Stanislavski's approach more like classical acting).

As I wrote above, this article still needs substantial development, and I'm more interested in the immediate future in the awful state that Stanislavski's system is in, as well as the Brecht articles. But I noticed the sorry state of this article (the Meisner techniqe article is just as bad) and that something like 2,000 people were reading it every day, so I thought I'd make a start on dragging it kicking and screaming up into the light. I would most certainly welcome other editors' contributions, but I would suggest that they should come from the study and summarising of reliable third-party sources (rather than the webpage/blog trawling that often happens). My apologies if this has put you off -- it isn't intended to.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 04:03, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Remember, too, there's no rush. I'm sure we can figure it out without reverts. I'll read the article you recommended now. If necessary and if you've got an email attached to this account, I can forward you a PDF of the article I built the lede out of.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 04:06, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not promoting OR at all, did you read the article I linked to? I agree that the characterization of the schools as different aspects of the system is false, I did not put that there. They are each american interpretations of the system, personally I think stella's is the most faithful and strasberg the least but that's just my opinion. Also, The Method IS strasberg's. He coined the term "The Method" to describe HIS method. Only later did method come to refer to meisner/adler. --Monochrome_Monitor 04:14, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I just finished. Here's what seems clear from that:

Okay, the trouble with the article that you recommended is that it's not a reliable, third-party source. It's a blog. Try searching the two author's names on google books and there's nothing (couldn't find anything else on either more broadly either).

The narrative of decline is a bit misleading too. Susan Batson and (though the latter leaves a bitter nauseous taste in my mouth to say it) Ivana Chubbuck are pretty much reworks of Strasbeg.

And the further I read, the more there is to object to. Like, sentence-by-sentence. I'm not waving the holy-holy of the great Method, when I say that. For example, the characterisation of "classical acting" and the Shakespearean stage is completely false. Joseph Roach's The Player's Passion is the first that jumps to mind, given that it covers the period from Shakespeare, through to Stanislavski, into the later c20th, would be a good place to start to demonstrate why.

They're wrong too in their characterisation of Stanislavski (I wrote the article on that, which I'm sure will show from the footnotes alone that I'm not just pulling this out of thin air).

They also give a falsified account even of Strasberg's techniques, regardless of attempting a third-party kind of objectivity. To claim that Strasberg's "essential contributions" were relaxation, affective memory, and sense memory is a bit of a joke, no? Even the contents page of An Actor's Work confirms that this is Stanislavski we're talking about.

Neither does Strasberg claim that relaxation equals uninhibited emotion onstage. They are, to someone who has read the material in question a great deal, obviously paraphrasing from different bits. For example, the description of chair relaxation starts out well enough. But then, they've copy/pasted in remarks about the song exercise, without saying so. They are completely different kinds of undertakings.

The idea that it's generally frowned upon in the industry is nonsense too. You could go and take a glance at Drama Centre London's alumni and find many of those at the very top of the profession, all of whom were taught by one of Straberg's students, and practice that approach today (Michael Fassbender springs to mind, but Anne-Marie Duff, and plenty of others)...

I'm not going to bore you with a blow-by-blow critique of that article any further--unless you really want it--but trust me, if you go look for yourself at some proper sources, you'd find what I'm saying here. I added a bunch to the article, for example. But the account of sense memory is false, and so on, throughout. This is the trouble with blogs.....

And, Stella's is no more faithful than Strasberg or Meisner, or Hagen for that matter, or Batson, etc. The moment you use a "substitution", you're straying out of the system into something Method. Let me know if you do want me to email the PDF source. It's digestable and represents the kind of material we'd need for an encyclopaedia article.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 04:41, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I went back over the article again, and read through the final section this time. Then I reached the end and said out-loud "Ahhh!!!" All the way through, I kept thinking, yeah, this kind of sounds like a Method approach, but, like, in a really poorly taught class. Then the bit right at the end explains it. I'd suggest, they're sore ex-students who feel ripped off. Their advice is a bit of a giveaway, to be honest: They say, "For those intent on learning The Method as it was meant to be learned, grab yourself a copy of A Dream of Passion...[ ... ]" Anyone who's actually read that book can tell you that the overwhelming majority of it doesn't tell you anything about how it works. It is mainly Strasberg's historical account of how he came to his ideas and techniques. There is like one single chapter that gives a very brief summary of the main exercises... he even says something like... I'll grab it... "This is not a 'how-to' section" (p. 123, "The Fruits of the Voyage"). That's why their account is so misleading. They don't understand sense memory, nor affective memory, nor how it relates to a training programme, nor how it does or doesn't relate to a rehearsal process (either in training or in the professional world). I can think of several reputable sources that offer criticisms of Strasberg's approach, but that article isn't of much help.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 05:09, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

My point was not about sense memory. It was merely what "method" means.--Monochrome_Monitor 05:41, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate that. My analysis of that article's misrepresentation of sense memory (along with relaxation, affective memory, the relation with the other strands, the relation with Stanislavski, the relation with the industry historically and recently...) was intended to demonstrate just what a catastrophically unreliable source it is. If you don't want to read the article I was recommending (which is fine, obvs), just take a look at the contents page on Google books: here at Google Books. As you'll see, it's a scholarly work, appropriate for our article, and unambiguously treats all three practitioners as part of "Method acting".  • DP •  ^{huh?} 13:24, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Meisner and Stella are certainly more faithful. Strasberg uses variations on a few of Stanlislavski's early techniques that encourage inside-out acting, but Stanlis. changed his approach to outside-in and abandoned strasbergesque methods. That's exactly why Stella split from the Group Theatre after studying with Stanlislavski. Anyway my knowledge is not in acting techniques, it is in theatre and film history. I suppose you're using this source[2]? I know about that definition of method acting, and I included it in my edits, but it is wrongheaded. Meisner and Adler hated being called "Method". Here are other sources which use method acting to refer specifically to Strasberg, and they make appropriate distinction between it and meisner/adler. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9]--Monochrome_Monitor 15:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, the sense you have of Stanislavski isn't right. I wouldn't want to trouble you to read Konstantin Stanislavski, since it'd take at least half hour, but it's detailed pretty substantially there. There are two things active in our discussion, so far as I can tell. How it should be defined and what count as reliable third-party sources.

The sources: I read, for example, the blog you just recommended (the Scottish one) when I cleaned up this article and it's wrong from start to finish (it also prompted me to put in a request for deletion for the author's Wikipedia page, which was clearly non-notable self-promotion). The only source in that list that looks anything like satisfying Wikipedia's policies is the first one, and she says explicitly that her sense of Adler as "modern acting" rather than Method is her personal belief (top of p.xv), besides which the term "modern acting" is her idiosyncratic adoption (it's the thesis of her book)--no one else I'm familiar with would use it in that way or make that distinction. In other words, what I'm trying to make clear is that Krasner's article isn't wrong-headed--it's the standard scholarly consensus. It's also, both in that article and the book of essays he edits that I mentioned, a far more substantial source than anything else we've discussed so far. (I was surprised you were able to preview the first page... I couldn't get Google books to do that)... And BTW, the second book--well, I can only see that one page in preview, but it contains a facutal error (which you can verify for yourself if you care to): it says that Strasbeg's Method was a corruption of Stan's Method of Physical Action. Not true. What came to be called the Method of Physical Action (a term applied after Stan's death) is the rehearsal approach Stan developed after he had to stop acting and was directing and teaching in the 1930s, and it was news to Strasberg well after he'd established his approach. He talks about it in his books and rejects it (largely based on misunderstandings, which isn't surprising given the complex cross-cultural eddies Stan's work was caught in at the time in the Soviet Union and beyond). Strasberg's use of the word "Method" doesn't come from there.

The definition: I appreciate that there is a remaining issue: self-identification of the practitioners. It's this that is, I suspect, the ultimate source of your sense of it. I indicated this earlier, but perhaps it'd be good to explain it a little more: there is a very similar problem with Stanislavski and the term "Naturalism".

In short (I know it's slightly off-topic, but bear with me): the productions of Chekhov that made him famous (in Europe 1906, in the US 1923-4) were created with an external technique, like the Meiningen, where he told them all exactly what to do--he scored it, along with all those SFX Chekhov hated so much. He started to change with the Symbolist experiments around 1907-1911, which led to the First Studio. That's where all the inner prep work came from--Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaia included. But it wasn't all emotion memory. It was imagination and improvisation and action too. That's what got exported and what the LAB folks, including Straberg and Garfield, were taught. Later on, he increased attention to formal structures, to physical sequences, and even more improvisation, but there was never any abandonment of all of the inner work, including emotion memory (just looking through the late manual An Actor's Work confirms that easily enough). The physical focus supplemented the inner work. When he moved from the early Chekhov approach into the First Studio work, he tried to distinguish the two phases for himself and for those resistant MAT company members. He did this by saying: the earlier work was "Naturalism", now I want "psychological realism" (sometimes translated as "spiritual realism"). That distinction is present in his late acting manuals too. It is often interpreted to mean outer, exterior vs inner depth. Now, that's all well and good, and you'll often find the same idea repeated as a platitude in practical acting books (Uta Hagen does it, among others, who usually replicate Stanislavski without saying so).

However, Stanislavski's argument was a strategic one that made sense in his particular cultural and historical moment. Theatre historians don't share that prejudice. When you put Stan in relation to Brecht, or Artaud, or constructivism and Meyerhold, or Grotowski, then, at a broader level, he is still part of "Naturalism", even if it's not about "kitchen-sink dramas" and an external director-led technique. Things like seeing art as about communicating "experience", the use of empathy, the fourth wall, the subconscious through the conscious, the autonomy of drama, etc. In all those, broader historical, senses, Stanislavski is part of the same broad movement that stretches from Ibsen, Zola, early Strindberg, late Chekhov, Hauptmann, Antoine, Synge, Shaw, through to people today like Mike Leigh. This is clear enough from a glance at the Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre, for example. In other words, just because Stanislavski said I'm not Naturalsim, doesn't mean he isn't (he is), so far as theatre historians are concerned. It's just that he's not identical to the ideas laid out, say, in Zola's manifesto. (Someone like Michael Chekhov is a more complex case, since he, like Strindberg, moves into what is in effect a form of Expressionism.)

I thought that digression might be useful because it's a very similar case with "method acting". All three practitioners in the lede share the overwhelming majority of techniques. They all involve the investigation of given circumstances. They all use imagination, they all seek to have the actor experience genuine emotion in performance (rather than merely repeating the external form discovered in rehearsal, like the art of representation), they all valorise impulse and the subconscious as the actor's creative resource, they all make use of "Vakhtangov"'s substitution... There are only minor differences of emphasis, which its practitioners are keen to exaggerate, more as a function of marketing, branding, and recruiting students. When you put them next to Meyerhold's biomechanics, or Brecht's fabel and gestus, or Bogart's viewpoints, -- that is, in a cultural and historical context -- the differences between Meisner, Adler, and Strasberg are revealed for what they really are: slight variations on a basic pattern. That's the reason they're together in the Krasner article and why they belong together in this article.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 17:15, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

First off your standards for RS are unreasonable, and you're beginning to talk broadly about the theatrical realist movement and modern acting in general, which is tangential. Compared to Shakespearean acting of course Strasberg and Meisner's techniques look similar, but compared to one another they are not. Strasberg is more Boleslovsky than Stanislavski, and Meisner I would argue is also different from Stella or Strasberg- he emphasizes doing as reality, rather than having a sort of mental-physical dualism. Stella's acting philosophy is based primarily on imagination and Strasberg's on memories. Many general statements about method acting are false- for example your source talks about method as if it were controversial as a whole, when Stella and Meisner were never as controversial as Strasberg. Another reason I distrust your source is the bit about calling method one of the most popular acting techniques- it is not, barely anyone teaches real Method anymore. And look at Psychological effects of method acting. This is obviously about The Method, and yet it mentions Marlon Brando as a "method actor". You're speaking as if there is a clear scholarly consensus. The sources I gave disprove that, there is a big argument about how the Method should be defined- with some using it to refer to a group of american stanislavski-based acting, others sticking strictly with Strasberg. It's largely a question of judging each according to their own techniques and philosophies and viewing each as part of an american theatrical movement. You are also speaking as if a reliable source cannot be wrong and vise versa- but encyclopedia britannica and many dictionaries consider method acting to be synonymous with the system, which is obviously bullshit (I hope you agree).This source redirects Stanislavskys system to method actingThis source says method was developed by Stanislavsky and defines it as "in which the actor recalls emotions or reactions from his or her own life and uses them to identify with the character being portrayed"- meaning Strasberg Reliable sources can be wrong. Two reliable sources can say different things. Here's another source- "There are other acting styles that take from Stainislavski’s technique, the most notable are those created by Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner, however neither are considered Method acting" Your view seems to be the Strasberg view- that method is a natural extension of Vaktangov/Meyerhold/Stanislavski/ et al, and that stella and meisner were essentially method despite their protests. I suppose you could also be describing the synthesis of their techniques that is often taught as "method". Look, I understand the position you have, I just which you would recognize that my position is not wrong or fringe, it's part of an ongoing debate. But just as there is an article on Meisner and Adler, there should be one specifically on Strasberg's Method. Right now the teachings of adler and meisner are put under the strasberg label.--Monochrome_Monitor 23:41, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

But MM, you're misrepresenting what I've written somewhat. I didn't compare it to Shakespeare--I showed why that first source was unreliable even about what it says about the latter. I'm just going by what Wikipedia defines as a reliable, third party source. And the distinctions you're making don't hold up to scrutiny--such as Straberg is more Boleslavsky than Stan. What do you think Boleslavsky is if not Stan? He didn't come up with any ideas of his own (I've read his book and a great deal of Stanislavski). And if you read Strasberg, you'll find just as much about imagination and tasks and given circumstances as you will in the others. And your sense that Method acting isn't taught anymore is just plain wrong--as my pointing to Drama Centre London, and Batson, etc., for example, was attempting to show. I can think of only a small number of drama schools in London who don't teach it (all of the major ones do). The Method people look like minor variations when you compare them to all of the other major 20th-century practitioners who I listed. All three (as well as Hagen and others) emphasise the reality of doing (it's just that that happens to be one of Meisner's slogans), because they are all practising Stan's "experiencing" rather than "representing". As I tried to show you, you haven't offered any reliable, third-party sources. They've been blogs and online dictionaries, which as I'm sure you know, don't meet WP criteria. It's not me trying to enforce my own idiosyncratic rules about that... Let me give you another couple of scholarly examples: these are both from The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre (which is a set-text for drama in universities in the UK, much like Brockett is in the US): in the article on Meisner: "In 1935 he began teaching the Group's Method acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, and became its head the following year. He continued in this position until 1959 [...]" (p. 719). And under Strasberg's article: "A great many of America's leading film and stage actors studied with Strasberg, either privately or at the Studio, among them Marlon Brando, whose 'internal' style as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire became popularly associated with Method acting." (p. 1038). There is a clear scholarly consensus and it's reflected in the reliable sources I've cited. It's not surprising to find that blogs and the like say otherwise, since there is as much confusion about this strand of actor training as there is about Stan's out there. Academics are different though. They're trained and peer-reviewed and know that if they're going to make a contentious remark, they have to mark it as a claim rather than a fact. Blogs don't have to do that, just as working professionals seeking to recruit students don't. There are different standards involved. I'm not sure what you mean about Britannica... I just looked and couldn't find an article on method acting (but a search returns Strasberg, then Adler, etc.). The sources that you actually provide are, as I've said, not reliable sources, which is why they're not reliable in these matters--they're online dictionaries (who often take their content from us). That last one doesn't include the name of the journalist who wrote it, but it argues that it started with the Greeks(!). Seriously? And no, the view I'm advancing, based on the academic literature, isn't Strasberg's (or wasn't)... He wanted it all for himself. The point of all this, anyhow, is that what's in this article shouldn't be reflecting any editor's personal feelings on the matter. That's what we have WP:RS for. The point of discussing it here isn't to get us all to change our minds about anything, but to weigh the evidence against the criteria. The academic sources don't become invalid because you distrust them. They're invalid when they're shown to fail to meet the criteria that WP:RS insists on, right? They belong together, because that's how the academic literature treats them. Our job is to reflect that.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 01:26, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

You're not hearing what I'm saying. I was only linking to the dictionaries to show that reliable sources can be wrong. And not all of my sources were blogs- more were books. You're wrong about Boleslavsky. Boleslavsky left the Moscow Art Theatre in the tens, and gave classes to american actors and directors when the Moscow Art Theatre toured in America in the 20s. He was the one who brought Stanislavski's ideas to America- and he was using the idea that Stanislavsky abandoned long before (when Chekhov had a hysteric breakdown), emotional memory. Strasberg's image of Stanislavski's system was second hand- that's why Stella split off from the Group Theatre- she studied with Stanislavski in Paris for five weeks and her doubts about the Group Theatre's teachings were validated, Stanislavski taught her that the source of acting is imagination. Of course when she told her colleagues at the Group Theatre about what she had learned Strasberg famously said "I teach the Strasberg Method, not the Stanislavski system!" (hat tip Robert Lewis) In truth Strasberg liked the emotional approach better. But I digress. Meisner based his technique off of Stanislavski's "adaptation", and the objective/obstacle system in general (he later got a lot out of Chekhov too). Of course he innovated as well, his emphasis on the interdependent reality of the partner(s) was unique and frankly brilliant (except for soliloquys!). But you continue to downplay the huge differences between Strasberg and Stella and Meisner. Strasberg Method's primary tool is emotional memory- his entire acting philosophy has been summarized as "the search for true emotions". Neither Stella nor Meisner used emotional memory (later called affective memory), Stella called it "schizophrenic and sick", Meisner similarly thought it unhealthy. That is the biggest difference. You probably won't believe any of this so I'll give a source. On how Strasberg's Method is based primarily on emotion, and how his ideas are more Boleslavsky than Stanislavski, read pages 56-58 You'll probably want a cite for my comments about Stella and Meisner too, just read a bit of biography or even better their work. I'm sure you'll come across it. The problem is you've read sources that treat them with a broad brush.

On Method being a dying craft. I'm not talking about method acting, as in American stuff based on Stanislavski in general. His ideas are ubiquitous and taught in almost every acting school (likewise Adler is very popular, Meisner is still taught too). I'm talking about true method, Strasberg's Method. It is common knowledge that his ideas have been shelved for purer Stanislavski.

You are also confusing my use of "Method" and "method". I am fine calling all of them "method" (although I prefer "American method")- even though method in its original sense meant only Strasberg, by the 50s the term was already used liberally. But there needs to be a separate article called "Strasberg's Method" just as there is for the meisner technique. (which by the way explicitly distinguishes itself from method acting, the author of the article agrees with me)--Monochrome_Monitor 05:33, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

One more thing. Marlon Brando learned from Adler and Kazan and to an extent Lewis. The whole him learning under Strasberg thing is a gross overstatement. He went for the chicks to put it bluntly.--Monochrome_Monitor 06:09, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I am trying to listen to what you're saying. But the sources you showed to demonstrate that "reliable sources" can be wrong---weren't "reliable sources", so they really don't demonstrate what you seemed to hope they would. They're journalist articles and online dictionaries, neither of which are reliable sources (which is one of the reasons why I spent some time pointing out to you all of their inaccuracies, so you could go check for yourself if you don't believe me). But you are, in truth, completely wrong about the evolution of Stanislavski's ideas. As I've already said, that can be proven easily with one click: An Actor's Work at Google Books. That's previewable. It's his 1938 acting manual, published a few weeks after his death: take a look at the contents page and see what chapter nine is called. And you, in fact, are wrong about Boleslavsky. He travelled with the MAT on their tour in 1923 to the USA. He decided to emigrate then. When he worked as a film director in the 1930s, his work was characterised more by improvisation than emotion memory (there are, after all "six lessons"). Francis Fergusson, who also trained at the Lab, said of B's directing work: he'd "always devote the first couple of weeks to 'finding the action'" (qtd Blum p.28) And Stanislavski didn't "abandon" those ideas (that's why they're still there in 1938). Take a look at the very well sourced article Konstantin Stanislavski if you are uncertain about all of this. You're also wrong in your sense of the significance of the Paris experience. She said to Stan that she'd hit blocks with his system, so wanted to check with the source (to paraphrase). He described her afterwards as "a completely panic stricken woman" and said he agreed to work with her "only to restore the reputation of my system. I wasted a whole month on it. It turned out that everything she had learnt was right." (Blum 1984, 26). You're wrong too about your sense of where the word "Method" comes from--take a look at Strasberg at the Actor's Studio p.40-41, for example. You talk like Strasberg doesn't use objectives. And the focus on the interaction with a partner isn't an innovation of Meisner's--see An Actor's Work chapters 10 & 11 (it's all there). They're not huge differences and that's what the academic sources say. The idea that Strasberg is "primarily" emotion memory (or "affective") is an exaggeration advanced by the other strands. It's marketing. If you actually read him, you'll find out it's not accurate. The differences between the three of them are differences of stress or emphasis within a clear common set of assumptions and practices. That's what the academic sources say and you can find it out for yourself by actually reading the practitioners. Strasberg, for example (and I'm quoting Blum here not to say S is right, just that it's not as distinct as you imagine), said that Adler misrepresented the pre-1934 group's activities and that "the Group did incorporate given circumstances and physical action into their exercises" (Blum p.26). Adler, too, would use emotion memory sometimes (just not all the time): "Stella Adler discouraged the use of affective memory exercises except as a frame of reference for the given action of the play" (Blum p. 54). There's a chapter on "emotional" memory in Uta Hagen's book too. Harold Cluman wrote of the aftermath of Adler's 1934 return on Strasberg: "Later, however, he decided to take advantage of the suggestions furnished by Stella's report, and to use what he could of the 'innovations' in Stanislavski's method" (qtd. Blum p.25). The reason "innovations" is in scare quotes there is that they weren't innovations -- it's what Stan had been doing all along (see his article for details). They all search for true emotions, they just put the emphasis on where to find them in slightly different elements of Stan's system: Strasberg on chapters 5 & 9; Adler on chapters 3 & 4, Meisner on chapters 10 & 11. You can go look for yourself! And I know Colin Counsell's book very well! I have it right here in front of me... I suggest you read it a little more carefully. It doesn't say what you think it does... It's the particular form of the exercise that is modified from Boleslavsky, not the practice itself (see chapter nine, as I said). It also talks about "emphasis"--if you turn the page back to p.55, you'll also find "The second iconographic component was an enhanced signification of the character's 'inner life'. This was a by-product of Strasberg's conception of acting per se. For Strasberg, the actor's essential task was to create and maintain an imaginary reality [...]" (p.55)! And I'm not suffering from relying on sources that treat it with a broad brush. I've been studying Stanislavski more or less continuously for 25years. I wrote our article on him. I've read everything Strasberg wrote, and Hagen, and Meisner, and Adler, and countless critical commentaries. But Wikipedia asks us for reliable, third-party sources, which is why the article can't be based on Strasberg's own account, nor on Meisner's, nor on Adler's. And, like I already indicated to you, Batson, Chubbuck, and countless others, who show no signs of "fading away" are all Strasberg devotees. I can think of plenty of Method teachers alive and well in the major drama schools and private studios whose business is thriving quite nicely. I'm afraid it might be you who's relying on broad stroke sources. I've shown you many reliable, third-party sources, academically sourced and justified in the biographies and primary sources too. I appreciate that your sense of all this is different. But the position I'm advancing is what the sources say...  • DP •  ^{huh?} 07:32, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for hearing me out. First off I'll clarify my intentions. I am not a diehard Adler/Meisner follower who thinks Adler/Meisner is/are the true heir(s) of Stanislavskianism. I have a personal liking for Adler because I've read a lot of her books (both on her as a person and by her) and a lot of books on the Yiddish Theatre scene in general- you could say that is a bias of mine. I will say much of my knowledge of the theatrical realist movement comes from my study of classical hollywood cinema (classical continuity), and I know a great deal more about French theatre in the Belle Epoque than Moscow in the early 20th century. By the way classical hollywood cinema is so much better than it was before I edited it, but its still incomplete and poorly sourced. (I read a lot and have a good memory for facts, but not where I got them) But I digress. I'm not trying to say the three Group Theatre teachers are totally different with nothing in common. They have a lot in common, but I believe that is because they all borrow from Stanislavski, not because Adler and Meisner's work is a branch out from the Method- as this article implies. I have concluded this after having read Adler and Meisner and Lewis, though I admit not Strasberg. My knowledge of Stanislavski is both from academic and primary sources- mostly academic (particularly the works of Benedetti), of his actual works I've read some of An Actor Prepares and most of Creating a Role. So I respect what you're saying about me getting a sectarian view of Strasberg, considering I have read others views of him rather than his own work. However the view that he strayed particularly far from the system is not original- "While all three variations of the Method differ from the System that Stanislavski developed over the course of his life, Strasberg's emphasis on affective memory is distinctly at odds with Stanislavski's focus on the duality of consciousness and on playable actions."[10] But I'll talk more about that later.

First off, you've misheard some of what I said. Meisner didn't invent focusing on the partner-I never said that. Even the technique he did innovate, repetition (he created others but this is the most significant), is based off of Stanislavski's communion. I think I said that. Stanislavski's comments about communion in soliloquy were something like the mind has to be in communion with the emotions. Anyway, why I say Meisner "innovated" looking to a partner for reality, for him it was the core of his philosophy- that real acting is reacting, creating spontaneity and impulse with the interdependent behavior of actors, prioritizing instinct over intellectualization- compare with Adler's focus on the given circumstances of the play and Strasberg's on affective memory. (side note: you mention that Stella used affective memory as a frame of reference for given circumstances. She believed actions created emotion and said as a very last resort actors could use actions from their past experiences that they knew evoked an emotion, that is only when they couldn't think of an action in the play to do it for them. Anyway Stan believed in a similarly limited use of emotional memory.) I do consider Meisner to be the most innovative of the three, he sort of forges his own path.

As for the "Paris experience" in every version of the event that I have heard Stanislavski did not say Strasberg was right. My primary take on it is from Lewis- Adler was displeased with the system as taught in the Group Theatre, and while in Paris (she was acting, he was recovering from an illness, I believe the same one that kept him from directing the MAT when they visited in 34) she told Stan this, who said that they may be interpreting the system wrong and relying too much on emotion memory, and he gave her a big diagram where emotion memory was a small part- not the cornerstone of it like in Strasbergs. But Strasberg was stubbornly confident in affective memory as the primary tool of his method. I'm sure you've heard this story- Stella the messenger of good news comes to the Group Theatre to confront Strasberg with her new understanding of the System and shows everyone the chart, and the next day Strasberg calls a group meeting and says he is teaching Strasberg's method, not Stanislavski's system. (I never said that exchange is where the term "Method" comes from. I know he called it "Method" early on, and assume he originated the term, but I've also heard the article "The Method" was adobted later by his critics or the media in the 50s.) Anyway for a time he wiped the word Stanislaski from his lexicon, only to reinstate it after Stan died as a status symbol. Again this is all from Lewis. Who, like Adler, was repelled by affective memory. Anyway, Stella herself said "Stanislavski said we're doing it wrong." What could be more clearer than that?[11]

Now onto affective memory. I didn't mean to say Stanislavski completely rejected the internal consciousness for the external action, he viewed the two as interdependent. But while he experimented with emotional/affective memory earlier in his career, and never entirely abandoned it, he eventually found it inconsistent and potentially harmful, leading to his formulation of the Method of Physical Actions.[12][13] As early as An Actor Prepares he advocated evoking emotions through imagining the given circumstances rather than through recall. I'm talking about his session with the poor woman who lost her child and is told to pretend her baby has died. That particular episode is actually a great illustration of the differences between the system and the method- that sort of personal connection to the role is actually saught in Method.[14] Now you said the notion that Strasberg's primary emphasis was on affective memory is "marketing" not found in RS- but I can cite a dozen reliable sources saying emotional memory was Strasberg's core tool. Instead I'll just cite one: "The use of affective and sense memory is the discovery of Constantin Stanislavski, and it is the cornerstone of the modern method of training the actor." (Strasberg) Of course, it was actually Théodule-Armand Ribot's discovery, but you get the point.

Now to Boleslavsky. His work with the MAT was in the tens- he was a contemporary of Vakhtangov and Checkov. He left for the Great War in 1915 and went to Poland after the revolution of 1917. He worked in Warsaw, Prague, Paris, and Berlin where he directed some films. He went to America to teach the System during the 23 MAT tour at the American Laboratory Theatre. From this it is assumed that Stanislavski did not teach him directly after 1915 (at least for a decade or so). When I said Strasberg's emphasis on emotion memory can be attributed to Boleslavsky (as well as to Strasberg's own biases) I am not speaking from blogs nor from dictionaries. Benedetti 1988: "Yet while Stanislavski was by now placing greater emphasis on physical objectives and physical actions, Boleslavski stressed the importance of Emotion Memory, developing the technique beyond Stanislavski's original practice. His teaching laid the grounds for a bitter dispute ten years later between those who emphasized the personal, emotional basis of the actor's craft and those who advocated the use of physical action. One direct result of these lectures and the interest the Art Theatre tour aroused was the American Laboratory Theatre, which Boleslavski created..." This is echoed by Zarrilli, "The combination of performances from the realist repertory (in the MAT tour) and Boleslavsky's lectures created a distorted and incomplete picture of Stanislavski's directorial interests as well as his approach to acting... Arguably the most influential of those who trained with Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya at the American Laboratory Theater but never directly with Stanislavski was Lee Strasberg (1901–1982)—the individual most identified with the development of American method acting." Benedetti 88, "What struck Adler most was Stanislavski's insistence on physical action as the basis for building a performance, his rejection of any direct approach to feelings and his abandonment, except as a last resort, of Emotion Memory, which, under the influence of Boleslavsky, had become a feature of Stanislavskian acting in America." Pitches basically echoes that.[15] and Hornby has a similar view[16] but he's more nuanced, pointing out that emotional memory was only one of the techniques Boleslavsky taught and his approach was much closer to Stanislavski than Strasberg, but regardless Strasberg was biased towards emotional memory.

My comment that Strasberg's method isn't taught much anymore has nothing to with specific schools/the work of his pupils. I was only saying that Strasberg's Method is not taught much in acting school anymore, instead pure Stan is taught to students. Anyway that is what I have heard from people in theatre school, so it's basically hearsay. I may be completely wrong.

Finally, I find the final sentence of the lead odd. Both Meisner and Strasberg divorced their ideas from the system, and they took non-Stanislavskian influences.[17] Only Stella claimed to be the authentic heir of Stanislavski. You haven't responded to my request that we separate Strasberg's Method from method acting. That's really my priority. And this convo is getting pretty wordy, care to take it to email?--Monochrome_Monitor 05:16, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

MM, it's the bits you've added in yourself that have misled you. Take a look at the Stanislavski's system article, the section on legacy. That makes a a fair amount of use of Carnicke and Benedetti (neither of whom support what you're saying, and they're the source for the "American Film History", if you look at it). It also explains Sonia Moore's role in all this. Let's focus on what the article actually says, rather than what you think it implies. It says, they're all part of the same thing. That's what the sources say. It also happens to be the truth of it. You're mistaken about Adler too. I don't have Carnicke's 2nd ed. but I have the first: p.152: first, C quotes the bit I already have done. Then she quotes Adler: "Using an action from your past is the only way in which your personal past can be brought into the play" There's more, but to summarise, as C says she's just substituted the word and kept the practice of EM intact. Most people would argue Strasberg and Uta Hagen are different and describe that in terms of Hagen's emphasis on "doing" (which, in a way, is accurate). But it's not that different. Still uses substituions in rehearsal, still uses "emotional memory" (her term). Stan didn't say Strasberg was wrong, you're adding that. He said what I quoted earlier (Adler had it right already). Have you looked at the diagram? Guess what #17 is on it... (BTW, it's just a minor variation on that illustrating the 'system' article) It's not "a small part" -- it has the same prominence as it does in the contents page of his manual, and as Boleslavsky and Ousp taught the Lab people. The idea Stan "changed his mind" is a function of Soviet propaganda that wanted to synchronise him with DIAMAT. That's where Moore get it from. Sweep away all those embarassing yoga and eastern influences and talk about "souls"... And no, Strasberg didn't call it method early on! He's explicit about that in At The Actor's Studio. Your sense of his use of Stan's name is mistaken too. Of course Stella said that! But third-party sources is the key. Meisner's lot are always insisting on his originality. Like I said, it's branding and marketing and Wikipedia's not an advert. Actually, it wasn't Ribot's discovery - Stan only read him after. Neither Benedetti nor Zarrilli are saying what you want them to mean... And you've started quoting back to me things I've already quoted to you as if they support what you're saying, but they don't... And I'm afraid you are still wrong about the teaching of Method in drama schools. The second most-visisted page of an actor on Wikipedia is Michael Fassbender. He's method-trained. It's taught in every major drama school in London. Where does that PhD dissertation you link at the end say "non-Stanislavskian" techniques? (though this is off-topic: did you read the abstract of that?!?) I appreciate that you are putting a lot of effort into this, but you're mistaken, and the reliable third party sources say you are too. They say all three are part of the same thing: "method acting". That's the subject of this article. Not "Strasberg's Method"--what it actually says. The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre says Meisner taught "method acting". Twentieth Century Actor Training groups all three of them together as "method acting". Take a look at Stanislavski's system and Konstantin Stanislavski (I'm recommending that because it'll save you a lot of time/energy if you know what you don't need to tell me about, allowing the more specific identification of any new information). Remember, the point isn't their individual variations on Stanislavski (which would only be a subsection of this article detailing the variations each enacted)--it's that they are all minor variations on the same basic (Stanislavskian) pattern. That pattern, in the US (for the most part -- the later history gets more fuzzy as contact with the DIAMAT Soviet physical tradition complicates the easy national distinction) is called "method acting"  • DP •  ^{huh?} 06:01, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I have stopped arguing that they shouldn't be grouped as "method". It's really just semantics. Basically, you were right and I misconceived calling them method as calling them Strasberg. I didn't want my sources to mean otherwise, all I "wanted them to say" was the stuff I quoted. And they said that. You know... since they're quotations. Again, I just want to have a separate article for Strasberg's Method. My point was Ribot "discovered" it first- and the term "affective memory" was coined by him. As for Stella, the source you gave and what I said say basically the same thing- the only difference is that source says she kept EM intact, whereas I drew a distinction between her practices and EM. I did read the abstract and I read a majority of that thesis. And I've always been talking about America, not London. When I say "early on" I mean before the 50s- since many say that's when the term was coined. And the 30s are before the 50s! :) And my comment about non-Stanislavskian influences is referring to other acting theorists who inspired them, such as Chekhov in the case of Meisner. You say Chekhov moved into expressionism up above- I agree he ventured away from strict realism, which is what Meisner liked. I generally term that "transcendental realism" because it strikes me very as different from German expressionist theatre and film. How can I be both one of Meisner's lot and one of Adler's lot, and a hapless victim of ideological Sovietization of the MAT? You have to give me a little more credit, first you say I'm not using reliable sources then I say all the research I've done and you say, well those are biased because they're primary sources. Forgive me for trusting the people who were actually there! But again all of this is distracting from my main point. I just want to split this from Strasberg's Method! And yes, you did a great job at Stanislavski and Stanislavski's system. Do you have any interest in film? Maybe you know of sources I can use to fill in the blanks at Classical Hollywood cinema. I hate that name because idiots confuse it with "Golden Age Hollywood", which apparently means "studio system age Hollywood". All of those articles need work...-Monochrome_Monitor 15:16, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I am confused by your response. On the one hand, you say "I have stopped arguing that they shouldn't be grouped as 'method'". But then you write: "I just want to have a separate article for Strasberg's Method". Which is it? Are you proposing to write another article to act as a subarticle to this more general one? I don't follow you. And no, the sources don't support the sense you're arguing. Look at the Benedetti one, for example. It doesn't say Stan abandoned EM. It's not the same thing to say that Stella abandoned it and/or kept using it. They're opposite statements. (And really, you read that thesis??? Even the abstract reveals it's garbage! How that got past a Viva panel is beyond me... But like I said, off-topic.) Chekhov isn't a non-Stanislavskian source. He's completely within the Stanislavski tradition--it's simply that his "psychological gesture" overlaps with Expressionism, rather than mainstream Naturalism/Realism. Just like Stan's work is as much "Symbolism" as N/Realism. I wasn't commenting on your allegiances at all--I was describing the geneaology of the arguments you are presenting: Moore adopts uncritically DIAMAT version. The teleological narrative is more widespread in its sources but is a central part of that. Again, Carnicke explains it at length. And the point about 3rd party is that's our critera for an encylopaedia (which is a different argument to assessing the truth of any of the primary sources' claims, though as Carnicke demonstrates at length, as does Benedetti, they are dubious claims). Yes, I've been a film studies/history of cinema/film theory lecturer, and I teach acting for camera. But there are far fewer editors contributing to theatre articles than those for film, so I won't be straying anytime soon. (But I would observe, I'm afraid, and again off-topic, that your sense of the film term isn't entirely in line with academic criticism--it does refer to a set of techniques and attitudes, but it is also the historical designation of a period that includes the "golden age"). The point about the material presented above is that it is offered to support the position that all three of the named practitioners belong together under the general term "method acting". This doesn't exlude the development of articles on variations of the approach of each as subarticles. It simply proposes that the current organisation of grouping all the variations together under the general term is correct and supported by reliable third-party sources.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 16:52, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand what's contradictory. If "method acting" groups Strasberg, Adler, and Meisner together and we have separate pages with information on Adler and Meisner's techniques, why not have one on Strasberg's Method. I never said one was contingent on the other- I said if the term method acting is used that way we should also have a Strasberg's Method article to prevent confusion. And yes, they would be given sections in this article as well and there would be a historical overview. And I didn't say Stan abandoned EM completely. I was very careful to be nuanced, saying "But while he experimented with emotional/affective memory earlier in his career, and never entirely abandoned it, he eventually found it inconsistent and potentially harmful, leading to his formulation of the Method of Physical Actions". I sourced all of that. Benedetti does not contradict it- she supports it. And who made you arbiter of whose PHD thesis's are "garbage"? Did you get a PHD in Stanislavski's System? The thesis you think ridiculous is sociological criticism. That's a part of scholarship in our modern world. It's fallacious to argue the thesis is inaccurate because of this reality. As for Chekhov, of course he is a non-Stanislavskian influence. Because he is not Stanislavsky (nor did he claim to teach pure Stanislavsky). It's silly to argue that someone who says "I was influenced by M. Chekhov" means "I was influenced by C. Stanislavsky" because the former was the pupil of the latter. It's not just a matter of degrees of separation-his philosophy diverges from Stan's in some key ways. To quote Meisner himself: "It was Michael Chekhov who made me realize that truth, as in naturalism, was far from the whole truth. In him I witnessed exciting theatrical form with no loss of inner content, and I knew I wanted that too".

Classical Hollywood cinema is not a "technique" or an "attitude". It is a cinematic and narrative style and a mode of production which was only retroactively characterized by film historians/critics in the 1980s as the unique form of cinematic storytelling that became the industry standard of the American cinema. This style's key formative period was a period of time (1917-1960) which only roughly and incidentally overlaps with the "Golden Age of Hollywood"- a period with several different definitions of its duration all ommitting the silent era, some based on the peak years of Hollywood as a business and others describing a romanticised era of percieved heightened talent and creativity. (Wikipedia's current definition, which uses the studio system- a tangible productions technology with both economic and cultural implications- as its barometer, was adopted by me.) Classical Hollywood style is not a film movement which can be assigned to a specific period like French New Wave or New Hollywood cinema or other Art movements, though film movements can be characterized by how strictly they adhere to classical standards. Read The Classical Hollywood Cinema (Bordwell, Staiger, Thompson 1985). The 1960 cut-off of the study did not imply the development of a post-classical style: classical hollywood style is THE Hollywood standard, it persists to this day. The association of "Classical Hollywood" with "Classic Hollywood" (and thus the "Golden Age") is a misconception which I'm not going to dawdle on.--Monochrome_Monitor 13:13, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

(1) I'm not sure what it is you are debating. If you're proposing to write an article on Strasberg, that's fine. Jean Benedetti was male. (And that thesis is indeed garbage, but you're welcome to embrace it if it speaks to you. No, it doesn't manage to deal in any appropriate way with sociological criticism. I'm not arbitrating--I'm indicating common academic standards. It's author wouldn't last long in any of the universities with which I've been involved.) And yes, I studied Stanislavski's system as part of my PhD at Stanford, as well as having lectured in it for more than a decade. And you misunderstood what I wrote about Chekhov. He's completely within the Stanislavski tradition. Your grasp of film theory and film history isn't as firm as you imagine, I'm afraid, either. And yes, I've read Bordwell et al. I think I mentioned before that I've lectured in film history and film theory.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 01:51, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

1. That's exactly what I was saying the whole time! 2. I've read literally dozens of books on film theory and filmography, including every publication by bordwell and compatriots. So yes, my grasp of the subject is firm. Check bordwell's site. He defines the term almost exactly as I did. I don't know what you're debating.[18] 3. It doesn't speak to me at all and I never pretended it did. I read some of the thesis because its freely available and a good part of it echoes respected sources. I don't know why you're so antagonistic towards me.--Monochrome_Monitor 07:00, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

In fairness I did more or less start the argument, but I'd like it to end now that it's devolved into a shouting match. TL;DR I just want a separate article for Strasberg.--Monochrome_Monitor 02:11, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

After too many discussions with people who disagree, it is hard to feel there can ever be a resolution, because people were either not trained, or not trained properly in the method. Best quote is:

“They learned to use "affective memory," as Strasberg called the most controversial aspect of his teaching—summoning emotions from their own lives to illuminate their stage roles. ... Strasberg believed he could codify this system, a necessary precursor to teaching it to anyone who wanted to learn it. ... [H]e became a director more preoccupied with getting his actors to work in the "correct" way than he was in shaping the overall presentation.”

Adler believes emotions can be faked (may be an exaggeration). Anyone who has done it properly will know that can not work — those who have felt it or seen the result know this, and the audience will know, even if they don’t know why.

There is no easy way to convince people, unfortunately, because it is about feelings, wish it were easy to describe, but only proper training with a good teacher can show people. It’s possible some just get it intuitively, or also young people can more easily relate, but people tend to repress emotions, to live as an adult, and one also has to learn to translate their own experiences to the acting role, among other things; it’s not just learn the lines and don’t trip over the furniture, as Spencer Tracy said. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:4300:EE90:F084:955B:78FD:A10C (talk) 06:51, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Peer review

Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Not everything is relevant to the article. There was one instance where the article talks about a meeting between Stanislavski (one of the founders of method acting) and Adler. Although it is useful background information, I did not find it to be relevant. The information could have been more concise.

As well, I was distracted by a sentence talking about a feud between Brando and Strasberg.

Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

The most recent information is from 2013. I think the article goes too much into the history and should focus on the different schools of it.

What else could be improved?

Not much else.

Is the article neutral? Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

The article heavily favours the Straberg approach to method acting. It gives less of a voice to the Adler or Meisner approach.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

As previously stated, Meisner and Adler are largely shut out from this article.

Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

The links seem to work. The sources largely support the claims in the article. I looked at Note 32: "JASON ROBARDS DEAD Oscar-winning actor star of stage, screen".

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

Not all the sources are reliable. There are a few sources that are biased in one direction (ex: "Salvaging Strasberg at the Fin de Siècle"). Most sources come from books and some from articles. However, some are biased. The bias is not noted.

Now take a look at how others are talking about this article on the talk page.

What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

The definition of method acting, the representation and differences between the different versions of method acting, and adding a page on the Strasberg method.

How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

This is a C-Class article under the Theatre WikiProject.

How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

It talks about what information should and should not be kept to best represent the topic. A discussion in class usually argues about the intentions of an actor, director, writer, the meaning of the play, etc. More or less, the goal of Wikipedia is to have reliable sources while in class we already have those reliable sources.

My question is: How does one define method acting if there is no scholarly consensus?

PatrickDQuinn1 (talk) 02:20, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Indian cinema and Dilip Kumar

How did he originally describe his own system of techniques? Nowadays, people will call it “method” because they knew about Method acting first — however, if Dilip's work preceeded the Stanislavski's system, then it is unfair to call it “method” in reference to “Method”. — JamesEG (talk) 21:10, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I think it’s a fair question, I would start this topic yself if you hadn’t. Dilip’s work did not preceed Stanislawski’s system, but it was not based on it either, so it sounds like we have the word “method” used emphatically here. This prompts the question: does the section on Indian cinema belong in this article? Paroles2000 (talk) 01:12, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Dilip Kumar did not precede Stanislawski's work, though he developed his technique independent of Stanislawski. However, we need to remember that "method acting" in current context no longer refers to the technique, but a concept of acting. If we were to treat "method acting" as specific to Stanislawski's techniques, then we are left with no alternative term for actors who follow a similar concept but have never read Stanislawski. Hence, for all sense and purpose, "method" and "Method" should be treated synonymous. Karan1311 (talk) 08:59, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

The list of actors is suspect

Being a method actor myself, I wanted to see well-known names who are included in this article's list. A bunch I knew who'd repeatedly self-identified as method are in it, plus some I did not know ... and then I checked to see if Tom Cruise was there, because I know is not. He is on the list. I checked the reference, it says nothing about him being method, and the "evidence" is an anecdote that could be true of anyone. Cruise was on the Inside the Actor's Studio TV show, and explicitly said he is not a method actor. 2603:8001:6A01:FA93:9DC9:5A72:EB33:81D0 (talk) 04:48, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• I agree. I'm gonna delete this entry since it contains far too much misinformation. HenryBarnill (talk) 11:22, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

@HenryBarnill: I know I'm late to the discussion but I agree that it should be removed. Way too much of the article is dedicated to this list; it's fine to list a prominent example or two but this article is not "List of actors that a source has described as being a method actor" and such a list is redundant with Category:Method actors. Removing that section took the page from 80,532 bytes to 30,346 bytes; the article should focus on what method acting is and not put so much emphasis on actors that any random source just happens to describe as a method actor. - Aoidh (talk) 21:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

This section is a mess

The part of this article about the psychological affects of method acting seems to have been copy-pasted from another source. It lacks proper punctuation and barely makes sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:AFC1:500:C54F:1C2C:ED0C:DC19 (talk) 19:01, 19 May 2022 (UTC)