John Bleasdale Writes On Film
Writers on Film
Isaac Butler Employs The Method
0:00
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:14:30
-1:14:30

Isaac Butler Employs The Method

John Bleasdale talks to Isaac Butler the author of The Method How the 20th Century Learned to Act.


“Entertaining … a remarkable story.”--The New Yorker


“Delicious, humane, probing.”--Vulture, Most Anticipated Books of 2022


"The best and most important book about acting I've ever read."--Nathan Lane


From the coauthor of The World Only Spins Forward comes the first cultural history of Method acting--an ebullient account of creative discovery and the birth of classic Hollywood.


On stage and screen, we know a great performance when we see it. But how do actors draw from their bodies and minds to turn their selves into art? What is the craft of being an authentic fake? More than a century ago, amid tsarist Russia's crushing repression, one of the most talented actors ever, Konstantin Stanislavski, asked these very questions, reached deep into himself, and emerged with an answer. How his “system” remade itself into the Method and forever transformed American theater and film is an unlikely saga that has never before been fully told.


Now, critic and theater director Isaac Butler chronicles the history of the Method in a narrative that transports readers from Moscow to New York to Los Angeles, from The Seagull to A Streetcar Named Desire to Raging Bull. He traces how a cohort of American mavericks--including Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and the storied Group Theatre--refashioned Stanislavski's ideas for a Depression-plagued nation that had yet to find its place as an artistic powerhouse. The Group's feuds and rivalries would, in turn, shape generations of actors who enabled Hollywood to become the global dream-factory it is today. Some of these performers the Method would uplift; others, it would destroy. Long after its midcentury heyday, the Method lives on as one of the most influential--and misunderstood--ideas in American culture.


Studded with marquee names--from Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Elia Kazan, to James Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Dustin Hoffman--The Method is a spirited history of ideas and a must-read for any fan of Broadway or American film.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/writers-on-film.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discussion about this podcast

John Bleasdale Writes On Film
Writers on Film
<p>The only podcast to focus on film books and to talk to the best authors working in the area of cinema. From Making ofs to biographies, studies to novelisations, I'm fascinated by where the written word intersects with the world of the big screen. </p><p>Support this show <a target="_blank" rel="payment" href="http://supporter.acast.com/writers-on-film">http://supporter.acast.com/writers-on-film</a>.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>