Performance in the Cinema of Hal Hartley By Steven Rawle

Read

ABOUT
- Data
- Description
- Reviews
- About Author
- Cover
RESEARCH
- Bookmarks
- Notes
FONT
- Font Size
  - x-small
  - small
  - medium
  - large
  - x-large
- Line Height
  - 1.00
  - 1.25
  - 1.50
  - 1.75
  - 2.00
- Letter Spacing
  - Default
  - 1 pixel
  - 2 pixels
  - 3 pixels
  - 4 pixels
DOWNLOAD
- Complete Edition
PAGE
- TOC
- Copyright
- Preface
- References
- Index

This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.

However, Hartley’s association with an historical and industrial notion of independence and the authorial expressivity associated with an art cinema can be seen as determining his overarching style as well as encompassing an authoring of performance style, rather than authoring individual performances. This has been the case historically and analytically with key art cinema directors. As Doug Tomlinson noted regarding Bresson:

Performance in Bresson’s films is a product of the aesthetics of denial, notably a denial of all traditional rhetorical approaches. In his films, he attempts to defocalize performance by removing the immediacy of its effect. His central approach involves a denial of systems of projection and identification.^⁶³

Although this might help situate Hartley’s approach to systems of performance in his own films, given the context provided by Bresson’s work earlier in the chapter, Tomlinson’s methodology is useful in articulating the role of Hartley’s authorship in an analysis of performance in his work. Tomlinson attributed an “approach” to performance throughout Bresson’s work, and he ascribed key decisions to him as director in organising performance across an oeuvre, in consistency of expression, and in important decisions such as casting and creating a consistency of visual expression. However, Tomlinson did not assign the physical performance to the director, locating it in the work of the actor. Similarly, reprinted in Baron et al., More than a Method: Trends and Traditions in Contemporary Film Performance, Tomlinson’s article is joined by several others that locate the director as the organiser of systems of performance, but he discussed the work of individual actors or stars as separate and distinct discourses within the overarching discourse of the film text.^⁶⁴ Likewise, this book situates the actor’s agency as a key determinant in forming the performance text of an individual film in the important role the actor fulfils in defining a character in the physical and vocal performance, as well as situating the agency of Hartley, as writer-director-composer, in helping shape that text. Finally, though, it must be remembered, and this is emphasised throughout the book, following Drake, that performance organises a series of economies of performance, drawing on significant