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One thing that annoys the hell out of me is actors who think they can improvise better dramatic dialogue than professional writers. I remember the opening scene of NEW YORK, NEW YORK being this inexplicable and gaping yawn of dramatic vacuum, until I learned that it DeNiro and Minnelli were improvising the pickup.
I recently re-experienced it in JUNEBUG with one scene (Embeth Davitz and I think Ben McKenzie).
The only improvisation I’ve heard that worked for me was in comedy, and radio comedy at that. Fred Allen could improvise and make me howl, he was so great at it. Joan Davis was actually EXCELLENT at it, too, I thought.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I HAVE seen good dramatic improvisation and wasn’t aware of it. What dramatic (not comedic) improv have you seen in movies that actually worked?
(FYI, I've not seen any John Cassavettes films.)
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Think about it though.
Take somebody like a classic director, Willie Wyler. If you said to him, 'Let's improvise' he'd probably have you shot. Yet his style was in fact to redo every take again and again, until he'd get it better. 'Just do it better', he'd say, but he didn't know exactly HOW they'd do that: he was humble.
John Cassavetes used to say that film-makers SHOULD start from the premise that they realise they don't know anything. In Wyler's case, that's exactly what he would do, but he'd deny it vigorously, because he always insisted people stick to the script. He WAS an improviser within the script's parameters, but he never thought of himself so.
There's always improvisation somewhere along the line, it just happens at different points. When a writer sits down and pens a screenplay, and dialogue especially, he plays around with it in his head. He will have an overarching sense of the dramatic climaxes, and the symbolism etc., but he'll still sit there at his processor and toss different ideas around in his bead. So in HIS case the impro comes early, in the thinking, in the editing.
Actors in theatre always play around with scenes to try them different ways. The more time available, the more experimentation allowed.
The Cassavetes people just bring in the impro further along the production line, that's all. That can be expensive in film-making because if you haven't it all worked out in advance, then it takes longer to shoot. There'd be chaos in the shooting scripts and storyboards. But that doesn't mean it mightn't be better dialogue ... it just means they couldn't afford to do it that way. If you improvise LONG ENOUGH, great ideas will come.
Simple truth .... no matter how good the writer, if there was enough TIME and MONEY, there'd be impro trials in EVERY film at production stage. It's just too costly. It requires real input from the players too of course, and you couldn't get the writer off the payroll so early either, since he'd be working with those actors.
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There's one scene in Cheech and Chong's NICE DREAMS that is almost entirely covered in one shot - while they sit around a breakfast table and Cheech is making pizza on the stove out of tortillas and slices of cheddar for a blind guy. I'm pretty sure the whole scene is improv and it cracks me up every time.
I don't have access to YouTube right now, and though DinB requested drama, I must also mention the scene from Porky's in the principal's office when Miss Ballbricker is freaking out about the events in the showers. It's a good 5 minutes in length, not scripted, one continuous shot, and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
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Noticeably absent from the replies are examples of dramatic rather than comedic improv.
Pretty telling, I'd say.
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It's impossible to say how much impro is in a film really. How would we know?
We all know that actors often ask if they can change lines, and in the past, the more clout they could wield the more free rein they were allowed.
The dangerous assumption is that an actor is a stupid thing, compartmentalised, in a box. Even in ad copy V/O, they'll let you experiment up to a point. When Alec Guinness or Olivier, or Humphrey Bogart tells you a line could be better, you don't assume the writer is sacrosanct. Improvisation in recorded film happens during a TAKE, but there's no way of you the viewer knowing which takes were kept of thrown away. What is an improvisation in one take, can be the new 'script' in the next. You'd rarely see it in the finalised shot, but it may still have been impro in an earlier shot.
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In fact, now that I think about it, it seems like improvisation would be easier in drama since comedy depends a lot on timing and precise wording of the lines to emphasize the humor.
It can be done, and is done in comedy of course, but it's also worth pointing out that many comedians, especially duos, like to create an ILLUSION of spontaneous impro, which is nonetheless totally scripted.
The impro is in the rehearsals. So by the time of final cuts, it's no longer impro, which is why it's impossible to spot.
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]Noticeably absent from the replies are examples of dramatic rather than comedic improv.
Pretty telling, I'd say.
Well, the obvious example here is Robert Altman.
I was wondering if someone was going to mention him. I've only seen a couple of his films (MCCABE AND MRS MILLER, part of NASHVILLE, and A WEDDING). I can't remember them well enough to remember if I got distracted by improvisation.
In fact, now that I think about it, it seems like improvisation would be easier in drama since comedy depends a lot on timing and precise wording of the lines to emphasize the humor.
You'd think so. But maybe it's just the long-forms of either where actors flounder in the way that distracts me so. The improv I approved of above (Fred Allen and Joan Davis) really only did it for brief minutes. The scenes where I rolled my eyes were much longer.
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Well, I finally saw a DRAMATIC film with tons of improv, and it (mostly) tanked, to my mind. I started fast-forwarding not very long into it.
I will say that the improv DID work for me in the climax of the film. And I'm sure you're going to giggle when you learn that it was HUMP DAY.
The kind of distracted and/or nervous and/or somewhat empty kind of talking that improvisation sounds like to me was PERFECT for the long scene where the protagonists have to make good on their plan. The rest of the film, though, suffered for it, in my experience.
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I hate improv in comedy films thanks to the movies of Judd Apatow and people like Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, and the rest of the lot.
In the KNOCKED UP Bonus features, there are HOURS of deleted and extended scenes, outtakes, and bloopers and watching them is twice as long as film which is impressive considering that garbage movie runs two and half hours (!) and it became quite clear why those films and those of the like are garbage.
Here is the process:
1 - Write a complete script, not an outline, but a full script.
2 - Hire "comedians" who rather then punch up things, re-write, or sell/make the script funny see it as a challenge and decide NOT to say anything as written.
3A - When filming, don't stop, just keep the camera going at all times even when the scene isn't funny any longer.
3B - No one is allowed to stop mid scene regardless of how unfunny or how off their work is, just assume someone else will make fun of you and thus, more laughs ensue [they don't].
4 - Never repeat a funny bit twice even if it killed during the first take.
5 - Don't listen to an editor.
6 - Comedies should all be over two hours and near three if you add drama [like FUNNY PEOPLE].
I just HATE HATE HATE how in these films you see actors trying to hard to pull out the funny or try to come up with something that makes other comedians laugh.
I'm not saying it should all be done in one take or that funny can't come out of these forms of filming but it seems like with tight editing or selecting the best bits and combining them, all you get are hours and hours of footage.
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Posted: |
Sep 15, 2011 - 12:16 PM
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By: |
Ray Faiola
(Member)
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Hope and Crosby didn't improv on film. When they began rehearsing a scene they would start with the script and work it a few times, ad-libbing or re-shaping a line or exchange. By the time the camera rolled, the scene and Bing & Bob's timing were set. Film was a precious commodity, especially during the war.
A slight variation of this concerned Lou Costello. Since Abbott and Costello had done their routines hundreds of times in burlesque, there were myriad variations on each bit. While shooting the "Drill Routine" in BUCK PRIVATES, director Arthur Lubin found that each angle had different ad-libs by Lou (with appropriate retorts by Bud). Lubin cut this footage together and wound up with a longer scene than was planned, and one that was, consequently, twice as funny.
It's fascinating to read the final shooting script of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. All the secondary characters' dialogue is exactly as it appears in the script. But Bud and Lou's lines are invariably different on screen from what was on the page. Another example of two comics whose trademark was rhythm working the scenes with the director (the excellent Charles Barton) until the dialogue had more characteristic glide to it. Again, worked out prior to shooting as the outtakes demonstrate (with the improved dialogue in each take).
As for Cassavettes, Falk, Rowlands, Draper & Company, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during those shoots!
I'm pretty sure that one scene Falk DID improvise in a non-Cassavettes project was the dockside scene in COLUMBO: LAST SALUTE TO THE COMMODORE. I have the script but I haven't had a chance to check it with the film. But the whole show has a wonderfully avant-garde feel to it (also with Fred Draper BTW).
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One of my favorite improvised lines from a movie was "These things will be lost, in time, like... tears in rain" from Blade Runner. Rutger just kept going after he finished the scripted dialogue and thankfully, Ridley kept filming.
Reminds of what Tarantino said about his scripted characters and how they are like his children and that actors who play the roles are like their lovers in that they take the "child" to different places and some of the them rubs off on his creations.
While I don't want to say ALWAYS but it seems the only improv that always works is when an actor is so in sync with what they are playing that they can do things that are exactly what you would expect the character to say, do, or dress.
Its why I don't think it works recent comedy films where comedians who do improv are playing themselves or characters that aren't really too much of a leap from what or how they are.
I would watch a film where Seth Rogan is playing a totally scripted character that is nothing like him to see if he has acting chops but I feel he might fail like Keanu Reeves who dropped the ball in DRACULA, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, and LITTLE BUDDHA but is perfectly fine as an every man.
And yes, I saw OBSERVE AND REPORT and found it to be an awful film.
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In an otherwise reasonable movie, the two final moments that Robin Williams had with the other two main characters sounded an awful lot like improv. I was baffled by them, and then realized they might have been improvised.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgPgGJDLRkw
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