Knute Rockne on Acting

"Why do actors in older movies sound different?"

I and everyone else who watches "older" movies get asked this question a lot. We've all seen older movies and feel that the actors' delivery is a bit stilted. Sometimes you wonder if they even know what the words mean, they come falling out of their mouths. This prevents some people from watching older movies. They can't get around the delivery of the lines.

A reader recently asked Roger Ebert this:

Q. Movies of the '40s and '50s feature actors speaking in a certain clipped delivery that seems very unnatural today. They'd jam all sorts of expository dialogue and plot points in a stilted conversation that had a machine-gun staccato. How and when did the trend to a more natural style of acting start?
Tony Sosa, Providence, R.I.

A. A more naturalistic acting style is generally said to have started appearing in films of the late 1940s, led by actors like Brando (whose acting was stylized in its own way). You didn't ask, but I'll add: Jay Robert Nash, the author of countless books about crime, says American gangsters of the 1930s actually copied their speaking styles from the movies, and that the screenwriter Ben Hecht is in a sense the creator of a speaking style heard even now in movies, on TV and during congressional hearings.

I buy this. If there's one thing that I'm sure has been a desire since the dawn of creation, it is the desire to be cool. Ben Hecht wanted to write cool. And crooks wanted to sound cool. And so one begat the other.

Or did it? As soon as I read this, I remembered a famous old speech I had seen of a coach rousing his team. Took a while, but I found it. It's a speech by Knute Rockne.



It certainly reminds me of the delivery mentioned. The interesting thing about Knute Rockne? Well there's a lot that's interesting, but for the purposes of what we're discussing here? Knute died in 1931. This speech took place in 1928. Ben Hecht's first credit on IMDb? 1926.

So which begat which?

And who cares?

People bemoan the acting of this time, but I've found that it's usually called for. Film noir, screwball comedies. These aren't about natural people sounding natural. And if the script asked for more, the best actors (Stewart, Hepburn, Grant) were able to bring what was needed. Brando came along (or brought about) a time when greater emphasis was placed on psychological truth. So the writing reflected this, or the actors reflected this and the writing followed, or both followed society.

And don't think this "unnatural" style has completely disappeared. Aaron Sorkin is a direct descendant of this style. Everyone likes to think real people talk like they do on The West Wing or SportsNight. They don't. I promise you, when my roommate and I went on a SportsNight marathon, our speech (badly) mimicked Sorkin's patter.

What we're talking about is aesthetics. They changed when Brando came along. And they've changed since. After Brando, every actor adhered to the Method. Wouldn't think of doing otherwise. Now, we make fun of Method actors. You've probably notices it too: Method acting is usually a bit overwrought. The actor is more concerned about his own emotions rather than the people he's acting with. So, instinctual acting has become the norm. To simplify, you go in, let the scene happen, and let it carry you whither it may.

So what's next? Well, I'm not so concerned about that. I'm more concerned about the past. I'm concerned about the people who turn off any movie in black and white because they don't like the acting. There was bad acting back then just like there's bad acting now. Follow the greats: Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. If you need a recommendation, start with The Philadelphia Story . There are other actors and you'll find them, but these three won't often lead you wrong. If you too turn off any Jessica Alba movie, you should probably go back and give it another go.