Imagining the Method: Reception, Identity, and American Screen Performance
Justin Owen Rawlins
Jan 2024 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Malcolm Hillgartner
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8 hr 42 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
Only one performance style has dominated the lexicon of the casual moviegoer: "Method acting." The first reception-based analysis of film acting, Imagining the Method investigates how popular understandings of the so-called Method-what its author Justin Rawlins calls "methodness"-created an exclusive brand for white, male actors while associating such actors with rebellion and marginalization. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book maps the forces giving shape to methodness and policing its boundaries. Imagining the Method traces the primordial conditions under which the Method was conceived. It explores John Garfield's tenuous relationship with methodness due to his identity. It considers the links between John Wayne's reliance on "anti-Method" stardom and Marlon Brando and James Dean's ascribed embodiment of Method features. It dissects contemporary emphases on transformation and considers the implications of methodness in the encoding of AI performers. Altogether, Justin Rawlins offers a revisionist history of the Method that shines a light on the cultural politics of methodness and the still-dominant assumptions about race, gender, and screen actors and acting that inform how we talk about performance and performers.
About the author
Justin Owen Rawlins is an assistant professor in the University of Tulsa's Departments of Media Studies and Film Studies.
Malcolm Hillgartner is an accomplished actor, writer, and musician. An AudioFile Best Voice of 2013 and the recipient of several Earphones Awards, he has narrated over 175 audiobooks.
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