My answer was that, for all practical purposes and for adults, emotion cannot be taught. The extreme cae of emotional deficiency is pyscopathic and sociopathic emotional dysfunction, and the treatmant for that has been notoriously unsuccessful. Brain scanning and modern medicine may yet change that.
For me the essence of acting is communication. Most of us understand a raised voice and aggressive gestures as anger. One of my great TV moments was when Paul Daniels (of all people) in a "Big Brother show apparantly "lost it" and raged at another participant, who had been overly aggressive. The target, and me, both bought it. The target was at first taken aback and then tried desperately to calm Paul down. Paul instantly switched it off, and, as near normal as he gets. He explained that he had just wanted the other guy to see what he looked like.
The easiest way for an actor to convey an emotion is to feel it, and indeed great performances have come from the ability to feel it and control it. For really chilling anger, I recall Sir Alec Guiness as Smiley. Just a slight freeze of the face, perfectly still, it all going on behind the eyes.
It is possible to feel it and not convey it. Some of the responses to fear are "Fight, flight and freeze." If an actor tries to convey they are in danger of just looking like they have just forgotten their lines.
Really harrowing examples of not conveying it can be found in the footage of the Tsunami on the Net. There you you can see the whole range of "about to die" reactions, from the cheap horror movie panic to the "this is a bit inconvenient".
For me acting is about conveying it, not feeling it. "feeling it" is just one of the tools.
You say that emotional can not be taught, but admit that actors may 'feel' something in the course of their acting, that 'feeling' is in fact one of their tools.
Do you believe that if you take a class in acting, that by the end of the class you might be better at 'feeling' something than you were at the start?
If you haven't taken any acting classes, would you be willing to believe students who have?
I haven't read through the whole of this thread so apologies if this point has already been raised, but reading this question about "feeling can't be taught" made me think of the similar question of whether rhythm can be taught.
It is certainly true that when they start dancing some people have a better "sense of rhythm" than others. I think most of us must have witnessed people (or indeed been people ) who start off with a somewhat shaky sense of rhythm, easily losing the beat, and sometimes unable to pick it out in a complicated track. I expect most of us have also seen these same people improve greatly over time. Some people would maintain that you can't teach someone how to hear a beat, yet manifestly people learn, and if they can learn it that means it can be taught.
I think the same is true of the use of emotion in acting - through coaching and practice actors certainly can learn how to access their emotions and use them as part of their craft.
And of course, yes, I believe that the part of "advanced blues" which has to be felt, that too can be taught.
I have recalled some research findings that indicate that perhaps feeling can be learned through acting. The finding was that forcing the face into the smile position actually released happy hormones. In other words acting happy makes you feel happy. In the real world putting on a happy face makes those around us happier, which in turn makes us happier. I think it works with acting sexy and with acting angry too. Whether acting can invoke emotions that are not innate is another matter.
I have not talked much with acting students. My acting experience is limited to being in 'Zigger Zagger'.
and a role in "The Magistrate", where I played a ... policeman."You will be playing a policemen. You have to stand with your back to the audience. That's a very powerful position."
There was a superb TV biographical series called, I think, "The actors studio" where acting techniques got an airing. Amongst other things it completely transformed my opinion of Sylvester Stallone. As Amir wrote the debates about acting and feeling still endures. From my own experience I know that feeling it can have little to do with conveying it, and acting it can be the opposite of what is being felt.
As I posted watching TV poker shows acting at the highest level under the closest of examinations, where the acting is the opposite of the emotion. How acting and emotion are linked is a complex, and probably personal, matter.
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