we don’t see things as they are
we see them as we are
Anaïs Nin, quoted on Tshirt in Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell
“Being a (pre-Nolan) Joker goon required one of the most elaborate skill sets imaginable. Can you a wield a tommy gun? Check. Safe cracking, bomb making, get away car driving? All check. Advanced chemistry and hazardous materials handling as well as clown school or equivalent experience? Check, check and check. Juggling? Check. Mime? Check. Willingness to commit crimes dressed as a clown or as other circus related characters (subject to change based on nature of scheme)? Check. Willing to work for a homicidal madman who doesn’t hesitate to kill his own henchman at the slightest whim? Check.
I always imagine the Joker running the most terrifying clown school of all time. “Ok, Barney. You’ve gassed the staff, disabled the silent arm and cracked the safe. Class, give Barney a hand. Excellent work. Now, Barney throws the jewels into some bags, climbs onto a unicycle and proceeds to juggle as he makes his way to the getaway car. You dropped the bags Barney. Do it again. Do it again! Barney, if you can’t juggle those bags while riding a unicycle how will we ever be able to pull off this job? You disappoint me Barney. You’re fired! (shoots Barney) Hahahahahahahah!!! Get it? Fired?! (Turns to a terrified goon) Why aren’t you laughing Larry?! That was funny?! Lighten up! (The Joker’s flame throwing lapel flower incinerates Larry) Lighten up! Hahahahahahahahaha!!! Get it?! (The surviving goons laugh nervously) Ok class, recess is over. Now, who wants to go next?”
Commentator Mr Noy at http://www.toddalcott.com/superheroes-batman-1989-part-2.html
Lastly, a secret weapon I picked up from a Scorcese interview that really works: the “fuck-around” take. When you’ve got a good version of the scene, let the actors know that you’re happy to move on, that they’ve done everything they need to do but, if they fancy doing it one more time with the pressure off and the chance to fuck around, they can have it. That’s almost always the take you end up using in the edit.
All most actors crave is a relaxed, fun environment where they are comfortable trying things out without being made to feel foolish; an atmosphere, in other words, created by friends working together.
Julian Simpson at Julian’s Brain
Improvisation you can’t understand?
I saw Klancyk perform while I was in Warsaw, so here’s an obvious thing.
I’m on my European jaunt, rootless, nomadic, and drinking in improvisation, and well, it’s handy to speak English, as many Europeans do also, well enough to make it possible to meet, collaborate, teach, learn from and perform with them. Even so, if you’re into improvisation and in Europe you’re going to see shows performed in languages you don’t speak. And you should.
Lacking the ability to parse what exactly is being said in a scene, you find other ways of making sense of the scene. Your attention moves to the manifold ways we communicate around the words, ways to which we should be paying more attention anyway. Tone of voice, rhythm of speech, silences, body language, emotional expression, characterisation, physical contact. You find what you can appreciate.
I’ve seen shows recently where I’ve been impressed by the clarity of establishing a scene, of visibility and consistency of character choices, or of the way that the performers engage with the audience at the top. Klancyk really impressed me by making me laugh out loud, several times, at a show I couldn’t honestly understand a word of.
Go see improvisation you can’t understand, and see just how well you can understand it.
A quiet update
At the beginning of this year I was in Germany, France, UK, Malaysia, Newcastle and then India, all for interesting reasons, within the space of just over a month.
I spent 5 weeks in India studying alchemical Tai Chi.
A few weeks after my return, I decided to up sticks and, for a while, take a room in Berlin.
Since I’ve been in Germany I’ve
* Been involved in planning and executing a civil responsibility awareness exercise on the streets of a city
* Performed in shows in three new cities, including my first festival slot
* Helped develop a play
* Teaching kids improv as part of a school initiative, including bits in German (a language I never spoke before last summer)
* Taken four workshops with teachers from many continents
All while maintaining my work blog and doing a big piece of work to ensure I’m not just solvent, but profitable for the period. And driving to Denmark. And seeing family.
Next week I travel to Warsaw to teach more improv, then back to Germany joining an event for an incipient international network. Then on to the UK, where I’m taking classes and performing as part of the London Slapdash impro festival. The rest of the summer is undefined, but includes more festival slots, teaching on a German kids summer camp, and maybe buying a van.
I like 2013.
I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.
Nixon laughed when I told him this. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you.”
It was Richard Nixon who got me into politics, and now that he’s gone, I feel lonely. He was a giant in his way. As long as Nixon was politically alive – and he was, all the way to the end – we could always be sure of finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil bastard. He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by the head with all four claws.
That was Nixon’s style – and if you forgot, he would kill you as a lesson to the others. Badgers don’t fight fair, bubba. That’s why God made dachshunds.
Hunter S Thompson on the passing of a political enemy – more here
Like its hero “Iron Man” takes false steps, stumbles, and even occasionally crashes, yet quickly recovers its footing.
The reason it’s so nimble is that director Jon Favreau (“Elf,” “Zathura”) and his fleet crew of actors grasp the action-fantasy premise and treat it with the looseness and sharpness of improvisational comedy. (Favreau himself has worked out with The Groundlings troupe in Los Angeles from time to time.) It’s difficult to tell how much of what they’re doing is taken directly from the script (credited to four writers, and who knows how many others labored behind the scenes), but even when they’re reciting somber dialog-bubble exposition, they treat it the way an improv actor would: smoothly feeding information into the scene, building a foundation on which everybody can work, and play.
Roger Ebert, jamming improv into unexpected places. RIP, Rog.
“Alas,” said the mouse, “the world gets smaller every day. At first it was so wide that I ran along and was happy to see walls appearing to my right and left, but these high walls converged so quickly that I’m already in the last room, and there in the corner is the trap into which I must run.”
“But you’ve only got to run the other way,” said the cat, and ate it.
Kafka – A Small Fable