Star Acting: Gish, Garbo, Davis

affron's text is insightful; the frame enlargements are helpful and supportive of the text. the most interesting aspect of this book could be its only failing. by choosing to study gish's silent work, davis and bridging the two with garbo, who acted in both silent and sound film, there is not a clear reason why affron selected these three. nor is there a clear connection between the three. not to mention, davis' filmography was the most accessible, as well as the most diverse (yes, that can be argued but how many of gish's films actually survive to disprove what i'm saying?) and davis could warrant a book all her own. so, if it is of interest, read closely and draw your own conclusion. i will be doing it again very soon.

Written before the age of video and DVD, where images can be frozen or the real time of movement altered, this book features over 750 frame enlargements from the films in which Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo and Bette Davis appeared. These enlargements dissect the craft of each star's acting style, by reproducing moments, often close-ups, in a frame by frame study, and also documents the evolution and refinement of technique. The chapters on Gish are less interesting to me (a matter of personal taste), but the ones on Garbo and Davis are priceless. The films Garbo made were notoriously inferior to what she brought to them. Nowhere is this more evident than in her silent period, though Affron gives us images from films lost or unavailable to us. An example is A Woman of Affairs and the sequence where she embraces a bouquet of flowers from her lover. Affron's images convey the series of expressions that range from relief, panic at the thought of losing the bouquet again, and hysteria. The enlargements capture the transitions, and the "organic and spontaneous nature of her epiphany". The text which accompanies the frames is often hyperbolic and unnecessary. Garbo's sound era is best represented and finalised by the enlargements from Camille, since Affron does not cover Conquest, Ninotchka or Two-Faced Woman. Affron's chapters on Davis cover her apprenticeship with Warner Bros, highlights the three films she made with William Wyler - Jezebel, The Letter and The Little Foxes - as exercises in control and focus, and culminates in her triumph in All About Eve. There is an argument that reducing film performance, particulary ones from a talkie, is diminishing the accomplishment of the performer. While this book could be used as an alternative to the films the frames are taken from, I prefer to use it as a supplement to the films, and an opportunity to appreciate the beauty and talent of these extraordinary actors