Sunday, September 22, 2013

Great Actors and Actresses

Tonight is the 65th Emmy Awards broadcast. I have been thinking about what makes a great actor or actress, but I am not sure of the answer except that it is something intangible and indelible. When you watch a great actor, you cannot forget his/her performance.

Who can forget the performances of Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen" or "Casablanca"? He was not a handsome man. He didn't have a great, resonant voice. He didn't study methods. Yet his greatness has seldom been equaled in American film. And  who can forget the inimitable Ingrid Bergman, the winner of Oscars, Emmies, and a Tony? They are both now long gone, but who are the great actors and actresses of television and film today? The Emmy Awards will try to answer that question tonight.

My answers will be different, I think. For example, in my opinion, Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary Crawley on Downton Abbey, is probably the best actress on American television, but her performance is so understated and nuanced that she will not win. In fact, as I have been typing this, the Emmy show has been continuing, and she has not won. The award went to Clare Danes, who is certainly deserving but just not transcendent the way Michelle is. With the solitary movement of a lip or eyelid, Michelle Dockery shows a world of emotion. Well, she lost, but her performance lives on. And when she is done at Downton, perhaps she can star in a film and win an Oscar.

So who are your favorite actors and actresses? What makes them great?

Vocabulary with  Definitions
intangible -- hard to understand or to describe in concrete words
indelible -- hard to forget
resonant -- deep, clear
inimitable -- impossible to imitate
understated -- subtle and effective, fine
nuanced -- expressed delicately (subtly)
transcendent -- far better than usual, beyond normal barriers
solitary -- alone, only

Vocabulary Exercise
Fill in the blank with the correct word:
1. He was the ___________ survivor of the plane crash. Everyone else died.
2. Her performance wan not rough or  ineffective; it was ________________ and  ______________.
3. The _____________ play took me beyond the normal barriers of theater.
4. The memory of the 9-11 terrorist acts is cannot be wiped out. It is ____________.
5. James Earl Jones has a _______________  voice.
6. Her paintings were __________________ because they seemed to be abstract and difficult to describe.
7.I think that it is impossible to act like Ingrid Bergman because her acting is _____________________ .

Grammar Point: Punctuation basics: For statements, always use a period (.). For questions, use a question mark (?). For exclamations, use an exclamation point (!).

Write a statement, a question, and an exclamation. Be sure to use the correct punctuation.








Michelle Dockery