Sensitive Artists

 People make much from this notion of artists being emotionally sensitive; even other artists make fun of it sometimes.  The phenomenon is genuine.  You can create art without emotion, but many question whether you should, and once an artist opens themselves up to the emotions related to what they’re trying to create, it can be difficult to shake them once the artist is no longer in the studio.

There’s a fairly famous story that came out of filming “Marathon Man” where the younger Dustin Hoffman kept himself awake for two and three days without sleep and lost a great deal of weight to create in himself the sort of emotions his character might feel for when filming began.  The story goes that during the setup for a particular shot, Hoffman complained about the preparations he went through (which he is somewhat famous for doing,) and his costar, Lawrence Olivier, said, “My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?”

I once wrote a paper for Brent Lefavor on the history of acting teachers.  I tried to find it before working on this, but I think I named it something funky and can’t find the file.  My point was that we discussed all the branches that grew off the seed Stanislavski planted but didn’t discuss much about what went on before that.

Before Stanislavski’s ideas about using memory and emotion in acting, most actors were trained in a type of pantomime where they used gestures to portray emotion, where holding your hands and feet in a certain position displayed this emotion, and changing how you hold your hands represents another emotion.  If you look at early silent films, this type of acting is pretty evident.  The Gish sisters were famous for using the same few gestures over and over again, but they were among the most famous actors of their time, so maybe they were on to something.

Olivier studied acting in London in the twenties.  He would have been the right age to study under Stanislavski but did not.  There may have been a language barrier.  Most of Olivier’s acting training came from working.  He does not use much of the pantomime method, even in his earliest films.  Olivier was one of a few actors who, early on, discovered on his own how to act for the camera.  He was a master of the medium shot and closeup,  which is very different from acting on the proscenium stage.  

Hoffman studied under Lee Strasberg.  Hoffman might be his most famous pupil.  Of all the “method acting” teachers, Strasberg might have been the most extreme.  If you look at who the Strasberg school produced, it’s easy to think maybe he was onto something.  Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Jane Fonda, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Geraldine Page and Eli Wallach, and Elia Kazan were all students of Strasberg.  Even Marilyn Monroe took under Strasberg because she was tired of people saying she could only work as an actor because of her body.  You could see her work improving under Strasberg’s tutelage, but Hollywood, then and now, isn’t very interested in a Pinup girl once she hits her 30s.

My wife played piano.  She was also a devoted fan of other people who played the piano.  She set great store in the idea of pianists playing with emotion, as much of it as they could muster.  I always thought that was fascinating.  Of all musical instruments, the piano is possibly the most mathematical.  The pianist strikes a key that pushes a lever that makes a hammer strike a taught strong, and the vibrations of that string make a sound.  Then, the pianist strikes another key.  The pianist controls three things.  He controls the intensity he uses to strike the key, which translates to the intensity of the hammer hitting the string.  He controls the pedals, which change the duration of the string’s vibrations, and he controls the amount of time between notes, which is supposed to be consistent with what’s written on the page, so you’re talking about fractions of a second where he can portray anything like an emotion.  

All of that sounds very mechanical, and indeed, you can build a robot that plays any piece ever written for piano, but a robot playing will never really move you like the way a human pianist can.  It doesn’t look like there’s any room in the formula for playing piano for emotion, but there is. That propensity to express emotion by striking keys separates pianists from robots.  

Psychologically and biologically, we don’t really know where emotion comes from or how it fits in with evolutionary development.  It seems to come from the communication centers of the brain.  Some animals, like dogs, cats, and monkeys, clearly show that they also feel emotions.  Dogs and cats communicate a great deal.  When I would close the door so my cat Buddy wouldn’t come into the room with me, he would sing an opera with all the emotion of La Boheme until I opened the door for him.  While he might have used it to manipulate me, he clearly felt and expressed emotion.

Sometimes, who we communicate with changes how much we express and feel emotion.  When I was in college, one of my fraternity brothers died in an automobile accident.   The visitation and funeral at Wright and Ferguson downtown was packed with really very young people who, just a few days before, considered such an event impossible.  As an officer in my fraternity and the Chi Omega Owlman, I thought it my duty to be as much like a rock during this as I could.  Even though I’d known this boy since we were little, there would be a great deal of emotion and considerable fear that day, and everyone would be looking for signs of stability in a world that suddenly seemed very unstable.  I decided that should be me as much as possible.  

At least a thousand young people came through that day—most from Millsaps, but many from the other organizations he was involved in.  We had sort of a system set up where a KA officer stood at several points in the line to sort of greet people and basically do whatever had to be done.  My position was close to the door to greet people as they entered.  

This was very difficult for me.  There were an awful lot of young people that I cared a great deal about coming through who were very emotional and already crying.  Cotton handkerchiefs are pretty cheap, so I buy them by the box.  I kept about six in each coat pocket in case a lady needed one.  As the line wore through, I was running out of handkerchiefs, but I kept my resolve.  Even though I felt great emotion about what was happening that day, I kept it to myself as a matter of obligation.  That worked as scores of people I knew came by until…

Nearly everyone I expected at the funeral had come through, but then, through the window, I could see her get out of her car.  For people who went to Millsaps in the eighties, CS’s was part of the landscape, and at CS’s, there was a woman who not only cooked our food and served our bee, but she also took care of us and told us when we’d had enough, and sometimes when we were spending too much time with her and needed to go study.  Just seeing her made the emotions I successfully tamped down inside of me start to rumble.  

“Hey baby,” Inez said, reaching out her arm to hug my neck.  

My conscious mind still wanted to be in control, but my subconscious mind said, “She’s here now; you can let go.”  and I felt a great trembling, first in my fingertips, as this great wave of emotion worked its way through my body to my face, and I wept like a lost child.  

I regained my composure and finished the visitation and the funeral, and everyone moved on to the place of internment, where we stood in the sun while a family buried their son.  For some reason, everyone I knew had Ray-Ban sunglasses that year.  I wore mine and stood as straight as I could and stood between two of my Chi Omega girls, Maria and Mary Carol.  My goal was to be as strong as I could for them, but they were there for me.  Feeling another wave of emotion coming on, I clenched my fist as hard as I could to keep it out, and a tiny, french-manicured hand touched my arm. Water silently but freely flowed from my eyes while I fought back the shudder I felt in my legs.  My Celtic roots wanted to let out a piercing, deafening, keen of lament, but I kept it to myself.

Part of my technique in writing a memoir is opening myself up as much as possible to feel what I felt when whatever I’m writing about happened.  I did it just now, writing about the funeral.  In theory, this helps me choose words and choose formations of sentences that are more interesting to read.  I’m told it’s successful.  It’s interesting writing for this particular audience because there’s almost always someone reading who remembers the same events.

Most of the time, I’m very much in control of the process.  It can be really very cathartic, even exhilarating, as I’m convinced I’m actually feeling what Socrates and Plato meant when they talked about fear and pity and hopefully express that on paper, which is the whole point of the exercise.  It can have a very cleansing effect.  Most of the time, that’s what happens, but sometimes, things go off the rails.  

A few weeks ago, I was working on a piece (I still haven’t finished) that connects my conversations with Mitch Myers and Dan Rose with my Grandfather's conversations with Dr. Kirby Walker about how and why the schools in Jackson separated after Brown V Board of Education.  I should finish that this week if I get my head back in the game.  Working on that, I had a thought about a memory and decided to spend an hour or two writing about that as a procrastination from what I wanted to write about.  

I published that piece on the blog and had pretty good responses.  It was very emotional, and I felt like I could communicate what I wanted very well.  It was something of a pandora’s box, though, and opening it led to many other memories, and those memories knocked me off track for a couple of weeks, where I struggled to have any productivity at all other than to scribble about those memories.  I got stuck in a loop of fear and pity and regret that wrecked me for a while because it made me question what’s the use of really trying to create when that’s the result.  

I think a lot of writers go through this.  It probably explains why they drink so much.  Writing Naked Lunch, the friends of William S. Burroughs became very concerned about his well-being as the things he wrote about had a clear impact on the rest of his life, and he was becoming obsessed with his thoughts and feelings about the novel.  

When I talk to young people about acting or some other art, I tend to tell them that emotion is just another color you paint with, and on some levels, that’s true, but that’s really not a very complete description of what happens, and I probably should be more honest about it.  Art without emotion isn’t very filling.  That’s how I feel about most AI art, which is the thought that inspired me to write this entire piece.  

Art produced by artificial intelligence might be interesting, but so far, I haven’t seen any of it that was moving.   So far, I don’t think Michelangelo has anything to worry about.  Once we get to the point where computers feel emotion, we’ll have an awful lot more to worry about than just what AI does to the job market for artists, and without emotion, what they produce may still be art, but it’s art that’s missing the most important component.  

I spent this weekend working to get my head back in the game.  Trying to work as a serious artist can have pitfalls and tiger traps, and I fell into one.  I’m actually very pleased with the work I produced in that confused state, but I don’t think I can ever really show anybody.  I don’t mind opening my life up for people to read about, but I don’t feel right about opening somebody else’s life up for inspection.  That seems like a real violation of trust to me.  

What I’m trying to do isn’t always going to be easy or comfortable.  That’s ok, though.  I still feel like it’s worth it, and honestly, I’m pretty sure accounting and marketing have their ups and downs too.  

David Bowie was hired to write a song for the big-budget remake of Cat People, with really very little direction about what to write other than to write a hit, which he did.  While the name of the song is “Cat People,” the sentiment of the song is a repeated line where he says, “And I've been putting out fire with gasoline.”  Sometimes, to create anything, you have to turn up the heat as much as you can and work through the flames.  I’m not afraid of that, but I do need to get better at dealing with the aftermath.