tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-752666223633131197.post5804949071135806538..comments2024-03-27T09:53:13.770-05:00Comments on Mark My Words: Burt Lancaster, More Than A StarMarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04638783212215818291noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-752666223633131197.post-9951253625201362382024-03-27T09:53:13.770-05:002024-03-27T09:53:13.770-05:00Thanks for this
https://mark-markmywords.blogspot....Thanks for this<br />https://mark-markmywords.blogspot.com/2008/02/burt-lancaster-more-than-star.html<br /><br />The Fishgalle link doesn't work any more but that's not what I came here to say.<br /><br />I've been watching as much of Lanaster's work as I could get and two things struck me.<br />One was physical intelligence. That man was a master of body language and nothing shows it better than the complete revamp he did for Leopard. The man on the screen is not Burt Lancaster, he is the Principe de Salina. <br />He also had beautiful control over his expressions. The blinking he does in his noir films may signal that he didn't like doing them; he absolutely USES blinking in later roles the same way you see it in real life, when somebody is rejecting what they are being told. I usually knit when screening movies but I can't knit during Lancaster movies because I'm watching for every twist and turn of his expression.<br /><br />The other thing is his sense of story. I'm a student of recorded oral literature like folk tales and the Bible, and there is a specific set of features that they share. One is that the concepts are expressed in action, not description. Lancaster had that down cold. Scalphunters is a perfect morality tale about racism, which acts it out instead of preaching it. <br />Another feature is telling multiple stories with the same theme, like the three back-to-back slander stories in Numbers in the Bible. Zulu Dawn and Judgement at Nuremberg were other Lancaster films obviously acting out the wrong that hate does, and what kind of people get swept up in it. <br />But Lancaster could only do films that suited his sense of story because he came to Hollywood bound and determined to control his own fate, not be owned by a studio or an agent. And he did that. <br /><br />I learned that he was a bookworm from childhood. I'm sure that reading broadly in classic literature taught him subconsciously how to tell a story, and he learned showmanship in the circus. But when he got to Hollywood he taught himself to be an actor and succeeded brilliantly.Pathttps://pajheil.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-752666223633131197.post-80127891575079806502009-11-12T12:00:05.536-06:002009-11-12T12:00:05.536-06:00Fishgall was my theatre teacher here in Wildwood, ...Fishgall was my theatre teacher here in Wildwood, MO, from 2006 to 2007, and he has also written books on Gregory Peck and James Stewart.<br /><br />About the Lancaster book, he told me that when he called Louis Malle over the phone to ask about <i>Atlantic City</i>, Malle was hesitant to talk because he didn't enjoy the experience of working with Lancaster on the film and wasn't anxious to discuss it again!Adam Zanziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14524618281515322239noreply@blogger.com