What is is that makes such patently absurd offerings as Lost or, going back a bit, The Rich and the Poor or The Thorn Birds linger in the mind long after worthier and more intelligent productions, typically from England and France, have vanished from memory?
One answer to that question is to do with the utter conviction that American actors bring to thie roles. The viewer almost believes that the actors really ARE the characters they portray.
Which raises the question: where does this conviction come from? I think that it has something to do with the fact that the gap between television and reality is narrower in the USA than it is in other parts of the world. It is a cliché to say that American life resembles a soap opera but, like most clichés, it points to an essential truth.
Here in Europe, actors often find it hard to "commit" themselves to outlandish or simplistic characters. They tend either to exaggerate the part (just to show that they are "acting") or to understate it.
I suppose the deeper truth is that the most successful television programmes and films are those that somehow and somewhere reflect a country's feelings about itself. In America, one of the strongest forces, it seems to me, is the yearning for redemption, the desire to make a fresh start, to "start over". The French are currently at their best in the comedies of Agnès Jaoui where the humour and desperation is entirely natural and unforced. The Americans could never achieve such effortless grace in a month of Sundays. And the British? I'm a bit out of touch but we seem to thrive in breathing fresh life into the past. I don't think anyone "does" the classics better than us. Our Mutual Friend takes some beating.
No comments:
Post a Comment