Denzel Washington-An Actor of Our Time
When asked about his thoughts on acting in general, Denzel Washington said, “Acting is mysterious and it’s something you can’t explain. You have to bring something to the table and it should be mysterious in the way that you get to where you are in a scene.” Washington is not only a film actor but also a mainstage actor. He has performed in stage productions such as Wings of the Morning, A Soldier’s Play, Richard III, Julius Caesar, Fences, and A Raisin in the Sun. He has been in many films and won many awards, such as an Obie Award, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe award. He is married and he and his wife Pauletta have four children together.
Washington has played many roles throughout his career.
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He’s said, “I do not know if a character is a destination you reach on day one or day fifteen or ever, but you’re always working at it. I never go, ‘This guy, I can turn him on whenever I want.’ If you go into a scene knowing too much, you’re probably not going to come out with much. When asked if it has affected his personality when he plays a dark character, he said no. It is more of a spiritual journey for him. Jonathan Demme directed Washington in the movie Philadelphia and The Manchurian Candidate and he said he would try several different way to characterize his work. Demme said, “I would call him an immersion actor... In ‘Philadelphia’ he stayed loose on the set, wisecracking, just being normal. But Denzel was a little depressed when we were shooting ‘Manchurian Candidate,’ because the character was depressed. It was two different guys that showed up for those movies.” Demme also said, “I think of him as an architect. When he arrives on the set he’s ready to start building the scene. It was Denzel who made me realize, ‘Oh yeah, it’s the actors who are the final storytellers, really.’ We prepare the production and set up the shots, but then the camera is rolling, and the actors are telling the story of the movie. All the great actors are great story-tellers, they have to be.” Washington can be on the set filming a scene and something will come over him …show more content…
Comedy is more fun for him but it is also new territory for him as well. He has been told by close friends and family that he has a good sense of humor, but in acting he feels as if he has to work on his comedic side and that he feels like he is better suited for drama. Washington is not afraid of failure though. In an interview with Charlie Rose, he said “I want to go outside of my box. I’m not afraid of being different. One thing I was taught by Bill Ball who was my artistic director, he said to fail big. I love that philosophy. I don’t want to fall back on anything. I am not worried about being safe. If I fail, I want to fail big. That’s the only way to go…and there really isn’t any ceiling for me. There shouldn’t be a ceiling for anyone. We should always be challenging ourselves to do more. Someone may not be right for a part, but they should be able to play any part given to them.” Washington also talked about the fact that he does not go looking for any sort of role. But, if he were looking, he would look for Shakespeare because it is fun and it is open to so many interpretations with the rich language. He does not like to do a lot of movies or plays with interracial dating either because that is what the story becomes about and there are plenty of stories about that. He likes to keep the play or the film about what it is supposed to be
The auteur theory is a view on filmmaking that consists of three equally important premises: technical competence, interior meaning, and personal signature of the director. Auteur is a French word for author. The auteur theory was developed by Andrew Sarris, a well-known American film critic. Technical competence of the Auteur deals with how the director films the movie in their own style. Personal signature includes recurring themes that are present within the director’s line of work with characteristics of style, which serve as a signature. The third and ultimate premise of the Auteur theory is the interior meaning which is basically the main theme behind the film.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar believes that the issue with America’s education system is not the ignorance of students, but their inability to reason with information. Abdul-Jabbar starts his argument by pointing out some of the ignorance in the education system. He points out a few cases where students refused to read material that may have challenged their beliefs. He then states that the country has no problem with funding education, but teachers mainly feed facts to students and then give them tests, leaving little room for the tough questions. Most importantly, Abdul-Jabbar claims that the war on education is a war on reason. Dating back almost 400 years ago, philosopher Francis Bacon concluded that humans struggle to discuss information contradictory
His debut role was in the blockbuster film “Better Off Dead” (1985) as Ricky Smith. Following the success of the film, he earned a role in the TV series “Head Of The Class” (1986-1990). Regardless of the success of the previous films and TV series, he had only just managed to appear as a supporting actor in a few other films and TV series, before he had switched his talents to writing and
Gregory Allen Howard the writer of the script has done an fantastic job with writing this movie. Boaz Yakin is the director of this movie, he has won and has been nominated many rewards. He was very smart about picking Denzel Hayes Washington as one of his actors to play the role of couch Boone. I wasn’t surprised by how amazingly he handled his role since he has been nominated for many awards himself, here are only a few examples;
By placing himself in this role, he creates the impression that as the father figure he is also in a position to give advice and serve as an educator. Obama then goes on to soothe and insure his nation that questioning and reflecting is natural, stating that “When a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations –to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless,” and then goes into the role of an educator by telling the story of each of the victims of the shooting. By telling each victim’s story, Obama further elicits an emotional response from the audience by effectively humanizing each person. This further creates a sense of unity, making it seem as if Obama really knew the victims, and making each person more relatable to the audience so that each member of the audience might feel as though any one of the victims could have been their neighbor or beloved family
Melvin Udall is a successful novelist living in New York City. In the beginning of the movie he is an irritable, obsessive-compulsive man who alienates himself from those around him. To add to his alienation, he works from home and does not allow anyone in his apartment. His routine consists of going to the same restaurant, being served by the same waitress and eating at the same table every day. His mental disorder is also displayed in several different obsessive-compulsive actions such as turning the locks five times and doing the same for the lights in his home. One day, Melvin’s homosexual neighbor is assaulted and put into the hospital. Due to the misfortune, Melvin is forced to watch the neighbor’s dog while he recovers from the assault. At this point in the movie, Melvin develops an emotional attachment to the dog and his attitude begins to change for the better. Melvin decides to help the waitress from the restaurant by paying for her son’s medical bills. This gesture comes after him having a meltdown when she did not show up to work to serve him. Near the end of the movie, Melvin makes a trip to help the neighbor and invites the waitress to come along. The trip does not go as planned, but the experience helps him to learn to communicate and have better relationships with people. In the end, Melvin falls in love with the waitress and is willing to learn to overcome his obsessive-compulsive lifestyle to be with her.
being a play on stage that when the actors part is over, he will be
The movie I decided to analyze for this course was American History X (1998), which stars Edward Norton. Though this movie isn’t widely known, it is one of the more interesting movies I have seen. It’s probably one of the best films that depict the Neo Nazi plague on American culture. The film takes place from the mid to late 1990’s during the Internet boom, and touches on subjects from affirmative action to Rodney King. One of the highlights of this movie that really relates to one of the key aspects of this course is the deterrence of capital punishment. Edward Norton’s portrayal as the grief stricken older brother who turns to racist ideologies and violence to cope with his fathers death, completely disregards the consequences of his actions as he brutally murders someone in front of his family for trying to steal his car. The unstable mentality that he developed after his father’s death really goes hand-to-hand specifically with Isaac Ehrlich’s study of capital punishment and deterrence. Although this movie is entirely fictional, a lot of the central themes (racism, crime punishment, gang pervasiveness, and one’s own vulnerability) are accurate representations of the very problems that essentially afflict us as a society.
Trip or the actual actor of Denzel Washington. A few lines and scenes in this movie made Denzel very famous and will be remember for a long time. Denzel’s acting was absolutely phenomenal in scenes like when he goes against Col. Gould and at first they dont get along very well because of the different mind set between Denzel and Col. Gould Shaw based off of how they grew up.Denzel turned into his character and played his character role throughout the entire movie without being himself and ruining the character. The battle of Fort Wagner did not focus on Denzel as much as the times when they were in the camps and denzel was sticking up for all the blacks seeing that they had a similar childhoods and they know what they are capable of and how much fighting in this army means to them. When all the black me get their tickets and are about to go exchange them Denzel starts yelling “ tear it up, tear it up,” because he is trying to protest the lower pay that the black men are getting. He quickly get everyone on board and they all rip it up along with Col. Gould Shaw who also gets in on it as the captain of this squadron. This shows what an influential and powerful character he is playing that really leads this group of guys, hypes them up and gives them a fighting spirit. I think he was a good actor that never broke character, was dedicated and mentally engulfed in the film and loved his role in the movie based of off all the examples I
Maybe you have read the book and at the same time, follow the movie adaptation. Did Jamie Dornan’s hot bod follow the critical and descriptive lines of the E.L. James novel? Is Dakota Johnson innocent and brunette enough for your liking? Well, it does not matter because both actors are already done with filming Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.
M. Night Shyamalan is known for his epic plot twists, and for producing hit or miss films, as said by critics and fans alike. On January 20th, 2017 “Split” was released to the public. “Split” has an easy plot to follow, a young man kidnaps three teen girls and locks them in his creepy cellar-prison. However this young man is more than what meets the eye. His name is Kevin and he suffers from dissociative identity disorder, or split personality disorder. Prior to the film’s release, the hype for Shyamalan’s newest film was colossal. For myself, I recall seeing advertisements for it everywhere. On every major social media platform (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) the trailer was being shared over and over again. Loads of attention being given to an
Love is a word that’s been both miss-used and over-used all at once. Romantic movies change our definition of and have a big impact on this definition greatly. There have been many movies and novels made over love, but never like this. “The Notebook” is a love story about unconditional love that two people have for each other. This emotionally, heart touching story will have your eyes blood-shot and burning from you not wanting to blink your eyes. This tremendously wonderful love story will have you not wanting to even miss a millisecond of this heart throbbing film. With many plot twists and many scenes that will have you falling off of your seat and you not having any nails by the end of the movie, this is the movie for you. This emotionally rich film is full of action, laughter, and romance, which is the perfect trio combination. This movie shows us how love can bind us together forever. This film went above and
His advice to aspiring actors, who were auditioning was to, "Walk in the audition room as the character you are portraying. You should study the script really well because you're an actor and no one is looking for anyone, but the character in you." His advice to young filmmakers is to study the business of filmmaking if you want to generate any income from
Likely due to his own personal struggles his work often swayed between humour and cynicism, nevertheless reaching out to all audiences due to the vast range of human emotions involved and delivering a spectacle which was and forever will be
Every now and again, there is an actor who once you see him/her on TV or in a film, his/her on-screen presence tends to linger even though you may only witness his/her prowess sporadically due to your frenetic schedule. Or perhaps this actor is such an immaculate performer that when you see his/her again, you don't even realize it, for he/hse so completely immerses himself/herself within the role at hand. Character actors are not just a thing of yesteryear. Indeed, they are alive and well even today, and I had the supreme honor to recently interview one of the paramount character actors of our time (at least in my opinion). In my limited experience, Adrian Hough is best known for his portrayal of the reverend in season one of When Calls the