Abstract

Mainstream feature films on videocassettes allow viewers to relate to film acting on a level far deeper than recognized by existing film theory, requiring us to formulate an aesthetic on which this new relationship between audience and actor can be based and explored. ;Our common knowledge tells us that the primary function of film acting remains that of dramatic representation, more precisely, serving the narrative trajectory of cause and effect structured around the basic want of the central character. Our analysis, however, shows us that film acting is also a filmic element, by that we mean, possessing form and qualities exclusive to the film medium. This requires us to take our inquiry onto an even deeper level, that of the filmic continuum: the time and space peculiar to the film shot, now that it can be "frozen" at will. ;We find our bearings in this hitherto uncharted domain by drawing upon ideas from Singularist philosophy , from speculative cosmology and from phenomenology Heidegger's essay on modern technology. All this leads us to adopt the film frame--as against the film shot--as the most basic unit of the filmic continuum. ;From this theoretical bedrock, we make our way upwards to show how such an aesthetic could affect a viewer's absorption of the film's narrative content. The best way to do this becomes to analyze in depth segments from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Akira Kurosawa's High and Low . ;We can then take our inquiry onto the level of an actual performance. We choose Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's True Heart Susie , since the serious scholarship it has inspired allows us to delineate the originality of our approach in comparison. We then flesh out our 'radical' view of film acting by locating points of intersection with one, certain theories of stage acting and two, with firsthand accounts from innovative film actors and directors