'Sense & Sensibility' Made Me Appreciate Acting Again

When I was twelve-years-old, I made a radical decision: I wanted to become a filmmaker. I was fresh off of having completed my first film; a ten-minute documentary about the Gatling Gun, which I initially made to satisfy the final project requirement for a Junior High History credit. But throughout the few months I spent working on the short-subject film, I convinced myself that I had found my calling. Over the next six years of schooling, I would dedicate myself fully to learning as much as I could about the craft that I had become so entranced by. I spent time learning about directors, editors, screenwriters, even visual effects artists and composers in an effort to decide how I wanted to enter into this world. I continued making short-subject documentaries and started making short films starring myself, or my little brother when I could convince him to join in with me. But above all, I spent hundreds of hours watching films, as many as I could get my hands on. Throughout this time, I learned to appreciate the various aspects of the film-making process. I spent weeks learning about what a focus puller did on set, or how foley artists created sound effects. But over all this time, I feel there was always one part of the production that I failed to appreciate.

Don't misunderstand me, I loved then, and still love today, the performances from Daniel Day-Lewis, Philip Seymour Hoffman or any other thrice-named star. Certainly, I'm capable of appreciating a great performance when I see it. I did come to maturity at the height of Heath Ledger's fame, following his incredible work in "The Dark Knight" after-all. But that never quite changed the fact that I failed to view actors as doing something all that incredible in terms of their contribution to a film. Certainly, I never understood how $100 million of a film with a $300 million budget ended up going to four or five of the leading cast members. In part, this spirit was informed by my love of filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and (to a somewhat lesser extent) David Fincher, who all have a reputation for disregarding andior, under-appreciating the contributions of the actors who they captured on film. I don't want to let Hollywood off the hook that quickly either though, as it seems like the quality of performances has been on a downward trend for decades now. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that the same ten actors seem to land every major role now, and at least a few of them (anyone heard of Dwayne Johnson or Zendaya?) seem to have zero acting range. There also has been a notable shift towards appreciating loud or boisterous acting over good acting that happens to be much more subtle. It's not surprising to me that we haven't seen many stand-out or memorable performances in the past several years, as a true shift has taken place. But, this is not an essay about the declining quality of Hollywood stars, rather, the way in which I've recently had my notion of the value of actors increased, after my viewing of this year's adaptation of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility".

Daisy Edgar-Jones (left) and Esmé Creed-Miles (right) in the obligatory still frame from the film, in any essay I write about a film.

There are quite a few sequences in this film that I could point to as evidence of great performances given by the cast of Sense and Sensibility. I was impressed by Esmé Creed-Miles' performance throughout the film in particular, but that should in no way suggest that the other cast members didn't also do phenomenal work portraying their respective characters. There was even at least one scene towards the end of the film where Daisy Edgar-Jones' portrayal of Elinor Dashwood instantly transported me back to my own memories of trying to power through a notably less dramatic heartbreak. I should also give credit to the actors and director for insisting on capturing performances that were subtle when they need to be and weren't over the top for the sake of being over the top (something that has evidently become The Academy's preference when choosing Best Actor or Best Actress). The performances in this film feel authentic to the text that I remember reading. Rather than breaking down a 200-year-old story beat-by-beat however, I'd rather just share a chain of thought that occurred to me while I was walking out of my screening of the movie.

While leaving the film, I began to think about the prospect of undertaking my own film adaptation of a novel. After all, I spent at least a decade in my youth dreaming of making films, and even if I've changed my mind about that dream, it's not as if I have lost interest in the art-form. There are even a few novels which I have loved greatly and think would be wonderful films, if given an adaptation; Nikos Kazantazakis' "The Fratricides", and Hemmingway's "A Farewell to Arms" or "Old Man and the Sea" come to mind almost immediately. But weirdly enough, the process of adapting a classic text didn't feel that daunting as I considered it. This was an odd experience for me, as even when I was young, dumb and full of... enthusiasm about my dream of film-making, the idea of being handed the reigns of a multi-million-dollar art project filled me with fear. Now that fear was gone, and it felt like the job of adapting a classic novel was pretty straightforward. As far as the screen writing process was concerned, the only real challenge would be deciding what to cut that couldn't be filmed or would in some way break the adaptation technically. Certainly, writers of classic adaptations have also gotten themselves into hot water with viewers in the past by reinterpreting or adding on to a work, but it's pretty easy to just not do that. As far as directing the film is concerned, it seems reasonably easy as well, at the very least no harder than directing any other type of film, but with the great benefit of having someone else create a beloved story for you to work with. In fact, nearly every job on the set of Sense and Sensibility, or any similar work, seemed, to me to have been made easier by the behemoth of an elephant in the room that is the original source text.

I would argue that the inverse is true for the talent in front of the camera. This argument comes down to a simple question: Why do we still bother to read? There are other art-forms out there to enjoy. Many of these art-forms are arguably cheaper than reading, almost all require less of audience members. Yet, there are more books being published right now than at any point in history. That's a pretty stupid point to make, since much of the publishing volume is due to self-publishing and artificial intelligence, but it shouldn't suggest that people have suddenly stopped reading. They clearly have not. I would posit that among the many advantages that the novel as an art-form possesses, perhaps the most salient is the energy that it requires from a reader. Readers have to imagine quite a bit in order to genuinely enjoy and sometimes even to understand a book. Everything from the appearance or mannerisms of a character, all the way to up to things left between lines and on either side of the cover.

For an actor to take on the role of a character in a book, particularly a beloved book, they're actively fighting against the best things about novels as an art form. By definition, every single person who has read a book is going to walk into a theater or sit down in front of a television with a pre-existing perception of the character that is being portrayed. In order to not break the illusion for audience members, the actor has to craft a portrayal so convincing that it can beat out the audience's ideas about the character, or, at least come in on equal footing. This is an impossible job, and explains in part why the old maxim: the movie is never as good as the book, exists in dialog between active readers, even if it is complete nonsense. None the less, I've walked away from the most recent adaptation of Sense and Sensibility with a heightened appreciation for the work that actors do, and a very serviceable reminder of just how important the talent on screen actually is to the final film.