Abstract
The term ‘performance’ has been adopted in a variety of ways by numerous disciplines, from literary and theatre studies, to the social sciences and education, spanning both theory and practice. Marvin Carlson has called attention to the ‘essential contestedness’ of performance, arguing that different appropriations of the term are so disparate that ‘a complete survey of them is hardly possible’.1 It is not my intention in this chapter to attempt such a survey. However, there is a great deal to gain in bringing together differently inflected understandings of the concept; while effectively offering distinct and discrete interpretations, differing approaches do share key themes that are more complementary than contradictory. This chapter explores some of the central tenets of performance across disciplinary boundaries and assesses their usefulness in analysing cinematic performances of masculinity.
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Notes
M. Carlson (1996) Performance: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge), p. 2.
R. Bauman (1977) Verbal Art as Performance (Rowley, MA: Newbury House), p. 4.
H. Bial (2007) ‘What is Performance?’ in H. Bial (ed.) The Performance Studies Reader, Second Edition (Abingdon: Routledge), p. 57.
R. Schechner (2007) ‘Performance Studies: The Broad Spectrum Approach’ in Bial (ed.) The Performance Studies Reader, Second Edition (Abingdon: Routledge), pp. 7–9.
See also, B. Kirschenblatt-Gimblett (2007) ‘Performance Studies’ in Bial (ed.) The Performance Studies Reader, Second Edition (Abingdon: Routledge), pp. 26–31.
E. Goffman (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Anchor), p. 81.
See R. Dyer (1993) ‘The Role of Stereotypes’ in The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation (London: Routledge), pp. 11–18.
J. Naremore (1990) Acting in the Cinema (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), p. 70.
See P. R. Wojcik (2004) ‘Typecasting’ in Wojcik (ed.) Movie Acting: The Film Reader (New York: Routledge), pp. 169–90.
R. Schechner (2006) Performance Studies, Second Edition (New York: Routledge), p. 43.
V. Turner (1982) From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: PAJ Publications), p. 122.
M. Kirby (1972) ‘On Acting and Not Acting’, The Drama Review 16(1) (March), 3–15.
Passing refers to the process whereby a person of one identity (most often applied to race, sexuality and religion), takes on or acts out a different identity or, as M. C. Sanchez and L. Schlossberg describe, ‘passing for what you are not’. M. C. Sanchez and L. Schlossberg (2001) Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race and Religion (New York: New York University Press).
See also E. K. Ginsberg (ed.) (1996) Passing and the Fictions of Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press);
G. Wald (2000) Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in Twentieth Century US Literature and Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).
J. Butler (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge), pp. 173, 176;
J. L. Austin (1955) ‘How To Do Things With Words’, The William James Lectures, Harvard University, reprinted in J. O. Urmson and M. Sbisà (eds) (1962) How To Do Things With Words: J. L. Austin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Butler’s consideration of gender performativity is central to a position taken by a number of feminist critics including Marjorie Garber and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.
See M. Garber (1992) Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: Routledge);
E. K. Sedgwick (1990) Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press);
E. K. Sedgwick and Andrew Parker (eds) (1995) Performativity and Performance (New York: Routledge).
J. Butler (1999) ‘Preface 1999’ in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 10th Anniversary Edition (New York: Routledge), p. xxii.
J. Butler (1993) Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York, Routledge), p. 94.
T. Modleski (1991) Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a ‘Postfeminist’ Age (New York: Routledge).
D. Buchbinder (1998) Performance Anxieties: Re-Producing Masculinity (St. Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin), pp. vii, ix.
S. Robinson (2000) Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press), p. 9.
S. Cohan (1997) Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press), p. x.
P. Drake (2006) ‘Reconceptualizing Screen Performance’, Journal of Film and Video 58 (1–2) (Spring/Summer), 93.
B. King (1985) ‘Articulating Stardom’, Screen 26 (5), 27–50;
A. Higson (1986) ‘Film Acting and Independent Cinema’, Screen 27 (3), 110–32; Naremore, Acting in the Cinema;
R. Pearson (1992) Eloquent Gestures: The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films (Berkeley, CA: California University Press);
V. W. Wexman (1993) Creating the Couple: Love, Marriage, and Hollywood Performance (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press);
P. Krämer and A. Lovell (eds) (1999) Screen Acting (London and New York: Routledge);
C. Baron, D. Carson and F. P. Tomasulo (eds) (2004) More Than a Method: Trends and Traditions in Contemporary Film Performance (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press).
C. Geraghty (2000) ‘Re-Examining Stardom: Questions of Texts, Bodies and Performance’ in Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams (eds) Reinventing Film Studies (London: Arnold), pp. 187–195.
R. Dyer (1979) Stars (London: British Film Institute), p. 134.
P. R. Wojcik (2006) ‘The Sound of Film Acting’, Journal of Film and Video 58 (1–2) (Spring/Summer), 73.
Cited in S. Prince and W. E. Hensley (1992) ‘The Kuleshov Effect: Recreating the Classic Experiment’, Cinema Journal 31 (2) (Winter), 59.
C. Baron (2007) ‘Acting Choices/Filmic Choices: Rethinking Montage and Performance’, Journal of Film and Video 59 (2) (Summer), 32. Emphasis added.
L. Stern and G. Kouvaros (eds) (1999) Falling for You: Essays on Cinema and Performance (Sydney: Power Publications), p. 5.
P. McDonald (2004) ‘Why Study Film Acting? Some Opening Reflections’ in C. Baron, D. Carson and F. Tomasulo (eds) More Than a Method: Trends and Traditions in Contemporary Film Performance (Detroit: Wayne State University Press), pp. 39–40, 32.
A. Klevan (2005) Film Performance: From Achievement to Appreciation (London: Wallflower), p. 7.
F. Hirsch (1991) Acting Hollywood Style (New York: Harry N. Abrams Publishers/AFI Press), p. 12.
J. O. Thompson (1978) ‘Screen Acting and the Commutation Test’, Screen 19 (2), 55.
R. E. Pearson (1999) ‘A Star Performs: Mr March, Mr Mason and Mr Maine’ in P. Krämer and A. Lovell (eds) Screen Acting (London: Routledge), pp. 59–74; McDonald, Why Study Film Acting? pp. 26–32.
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© 2011 Donna Peberdy
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Peberdy, D. (2011). Performance and Masculinity. In: Masculinity and Film Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230308701_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230308701_2
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