Cynthia Baron

Food and Gender in Bagdad Cafe

The 1988 West German film, Bagdad Cafe (Out of Rosenheim), was based on a screenplay co-authored by director Percy Adlon, producer Eleanor Adlon, and screenwriter Christopher Doherty.1 Given the primary craftspeople involved, when Bagdad Cafe was released in the U.S., it was considered a European film, even though the international co-production was in English, had a predominately American cast, and was set in California s Mojave Desert. For a foreign, independent film in competition with expensive Hollywood productions like Rain Man, the Tom Cruise-Dustin Hoffman show piece that swept the Oscars in 1989, Bagdad Cafe was rather successful. It was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 1989 Independent Spirit Awards and grossed

The Cinema of Kathryn Bigelow: Hollywood Transgressor edited by Deborah Jermyn and Sean Redmond (London: Wallflower, 2003)

3.6M in its initial North American release, a very respectable performance for a foreign film.2 Today, Bagdad Cafe is still a noteworthy specialty film that appeals primarily to an older, more highly educated segment of the moviegoing audience interested in work that offers an unusual aesthetic or dramatic experience (Rosen 1987: 6).

Training in Modern Acting on the Studio Lots

is the expansion in the amount of information or impressions that can be taken in in a short span of time” (271). In many ways, this is what this book is: in addition to a careful study of the ways we see the landscape, and the manners in which it is reflected back at us by photographers, filmmakers, and TV program producers, this book is also a celebration, a celebration of both what we see and how we see it in a world racing by us and at us, even as we race through it.

The Pasadena Playhouse

Chapter 9 offers new insights into the history of Modern Acting and film industry practices that emerged due to the transition to sound. It shows that Hollywood’s pressing need for actors who could create complex characterizations on their own prompted the studios to hire drama coaches to train young actors, and dialogue directors to work privately with actors to prepare for specific roles. The chapter describes the acting programs established at MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO, 20th Century Fox, and Universal, and the careers of acting mentors such as Phyllis Loughton, Lillian Burns, Florence Enright, and Sophie Rosenstein. It shows that these teachers trained actors to use script analysis to clarify characters’ given circumstances, objectives, and actions, and the obstacles created by those characters’ conflicting objectives.

The American Academy of Dramatic Arts

Chapter 8 provides a history of this resident theatre, which was established in 1925, became the official State Theatre of California in 1937, and connected executives looking for talent with actors searching for employment in the 1930s and 1940s. As a crossroads for theatre and film professionals, the Playhouse had a key role in circulating Modern acting principles. The chapter’s analysis of two important acting manuals used at the Playhouse School of Theatre reveals that Modern acting principles, consistent with Stanislavsky’s ideas, were central to its program. The chapter’s look at the applied dimension of the program, which gave performers experience in the 800-seat mainstage theatre and the 30-seat Playbox Theatre, sheds additional light on the training that actors like Eleanor Parker and William Holden received.

Shifting Fortunes in the Performing Arts Business

Chapter 7 clarifies the vision of Modern acting formulated by Academy director Charles Jehlinger, who led the school from 1900 to his death in 1952. Known in the 1930s and 1940s as the acting school that launched Spencer Tracy, Lauren Bacall, and other stars, its graduates today include John Cassavetes, Robert Redford, and Jessica Chastain. To illustrate the Modern acting strategies circulated at the Academy, the chapter examines notes from Jehlinger’s classes, material in an acting manual by Academy instructor Aristide D’Angelo, and reports by Academy graduates, who compare Jehlinger’s to Stanislavsky’s approach for many reasons, including both teachers’ emphasis on preparation that allows actors to set aside convention and personal experiences in order to do what the character would do in a specific situation.

Developments in Modern Theatre and Modern Acting, 1875–1930

Chapter 6 documents the well-traveled paths that linked theatre and film in the 1930s and 1940s. It shows that summer and stock theatres, amateur and professional resident theatres, national touring companies, and Broadway productions became training grounds and audition sites for actors, who found secure employment and sometimes stardom in Hollywood films. It examines the history of the Group Theatre to illustrate pertinent economic factors, differing views about the role of directors, and the ideas that came to distinguish Modern and Method acting. The chapter’s material historiography reveals that economic and industrial factors of the era led to a mass migration of acting talent from stage to screen, and transformed Broadway and Hollywood into two branches of an increasingly centralized and technologically based performing arts business.

Modern Acting: Obscured by the Method’s “American” Style

Chapter 5 examines the Modern acting principles that first emerged when American theatre practitioners developed acting programs in the 1880s. This development was a response to changing visions of modern theatre and the new centralized touring companies that diminished opportunities for young actors to learn their craft in local repertory. The chapter draws on James McTeague’s research on the numerous actor training programs established in the USA between 1875 and 1925. It reflects on the major contributions of the repertory companies led by Minnie Maddern Fiske and Eva Le Gallienne. It also illustrates the vision of acting introduced by Moscow Art Theatre members Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya, whose work at the American Laboratory contributed to the articulation of Modern acting principles.

Modern Acting: A Conscious Approach

Chapter 4 considers cultural developments that led Method acting to be mistakenly seen as the only emotion-based, internal approach to performance. It explores tensions created by the influence that British traditions have had on American film and theatre, and the attack on British and Anglo-American actors mounted by members of the Actors Studio starting in the late 1940s. The chapter shows that Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando, whose performances in the late 1940s and early 1950s seemed to offer a new “American” style, were not Method actors; Clift studied with Alfred Lunt, and Marlon Brando worked with Stella Adler. The chapter also explores ways in which Elia Kazan’s and Marilyn Monroe’s connection to the Actors Studio contributed to Method acting’s visibility in American popular culture.

Acting Strategies, Modern Drama, and New Stagecraft

Chapter 3 provides a concise introduction to the Modern acting techniques described by: Josephine Dillon and Sophie Rosenstein, authors of manuals on Modern acting; Roman Bohnen, Morris Carnovsky, Phoebe Brand, and other members of the Actors’ Laboratory in Hollywood; and Stella Adler, another member of the Group Theatre, who began to combine work as an acting teacher with her career as an actor in the 1930s. The Modern acting techniques that these teachers focused on concern the challenges of building characterizations and developing the requisite concentration and physical and vocal ability to embody those characterizations. Their shared interest in addressing a range of acting problems contrasts with the Method’s more singular emphasis on breaking down inhibitions that seem to block actors’ expression of personal feeling.