The first Jean Benedetti lecture (2020) Stanislavsky and Film: Con and Pro

Abstract

ABSTRACT Stanislavsky distrusted cinema as a distraction for the actor and a poor substitute for the communion between audience and stage. His only intensive engagement with film came in 1923 when a Hollywood studio persuaded him to prepare a scenario about 16th-century Muscovy; but it and other proposed experiments remained unrealized. Nevertheless, the aesthetics and ethos of the Moscow Art Theatre permeated Russian cinema from its beginnings; many of its leading directors, designers and performers had worked there. The film maker Moisey Aleynikov imbibed from it the notions of the collaborative director, the importance of ensemble and the importance of supplementing the script. The director Vsevolod Pudovkin paid lip service to the Stanislavsky system of acting but with a Stalinist gloss. In Hollywood, many Art Theatre veterans found employment and taught classes, though their most abiding influence was through their own performances.