Bio
Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall began his career with To Kill a Mockingbird, and has been known for iconic performances ever since in The Godfather (I and II), The Great Santini, Apocalypse Now, Tender Mercies, The Apostle (which he also directed), Lonesome Dove and countless other films.
Annette Insdorf
Annette Insdorf is the director of undergraduate film studies at Columbia University.
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Encyclopædia Britannica Articles
- acting
Art of representing a character on a stage or before a camera by means of movement, gesture, and intonation. Acting in the Western tradition originated in Greece in the 6th century BC; the tragedian Thespis is traditionally regarded as founder of the profession. Aristotle defined acting as the right management of the voice to express various emotions and declared it a natural gift that he doubted could be taught. Acting declined as an art in the Middle Ages, when Christian liturgical drama was performed by craft guilds and amateurs. Modern professional acting emerged in the 16th century with Italy's commedia dell'arte troupes. It flourished during the era of William Shakespeare. Not until the 18th century, however, was acting considered a profession to be taken seriously, through the efforts in England of the actor-manager David Garrick and the talents of actors such as Sarah Siddons, Edmund Kean, and Henry Irving. Modern acting styles have been influenced by Konstantin Stanislavsky's emphasis on the actor's identification with his role and by Bertolt Brecht's insistence on the objectivity and discipline of the actor. The Stanislavsky method was adopted in the U.S. by Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler (190192) and is the basis of most contemporary training, which features the cultivation of emotional and sense memory, physical and vocal training, and improvisation.
- acting on britannica.com
- Hollywood
District of the city of Los Angeles, Calif., U.S. Its name is synonymous with the American movie industry. In 1887 it was laid out as a subdivision by Harvey Wilcox, a prohibitionist who envisioned a community based on his religious principles. It was consolidated with Los Angeles in 1910 and became the centre of the movie industry by 1915. By the 1960s it also was the source of much American network television programming.
- Hollywood on britannica.com
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