The actor-character amalgam: from transparent mimesis to the experimental acting

Abstract

the actor-character relationship is one of the pillars of the film acting. Our objective is to think of relations between these enunciative instances that extrapolate a symbiosis relation, in which the former tries to “transform” into the second, classic model of acting in the theater and in the cinema. We propose to investigate strategies of staging where actor and character are united by the idea of total amalgam, by being united by a determinant common physical or psychological condition. To that end, we used the methodology of the acting studies, seeking to develop an aesthetic analysis about processes and products of action (gestures, body posture) in films in which actor-characters are affected by some type of special condition (dwarfism, congenital malformation, Down syndrome, deafness or intellectual disability), which means that there is an essential interdependence between representation and referent. Such procedures diverge from the traditional idea of coupling or imitation, characteristic of transparent mimesis. The hypothesis is that the total amalgam actor-character is a procedure, experimental, rarely achieved in commercial cinema, as to the few examples of films cited here can attest.