Making Believe: Screen Performance and Special Effects in Popular Cinema

246 Pages·2017·2.266 MB·English

by  Lisa Bode

Making Believe
Volumes in the Techniques of the Moving Image series explore the relationship between
what we see onscreen and the technical achievements undertaken in filmmaking to make
this possible. Books explore some defined aspect of cinema— work from a particular era,
work in a particular genre, work by a particular filmmaker or team, work from a particu-
lar studio, or work on a particular theme— in light of some technique and/or technical
achievement, such as cinematography, direction, acting, lighting, costuming, set design,
legal arrangements, agenting, scripting, sound design and recording, and sound or pic-
ture editing. Historical and social background contextualize the subject of each volume.
Murray Pomerance
Series Editor
Jay Beck, Designing Sound: Audiovisual Aesthetics in 1970s American Cinema
Lisa Bode, Making Believe: Screen Performance and Special Effects in Popular Cinema
Wheeler Winston Dixon, Death of the Moguls: The End of Classical Hollywood
R. Barton Palmer, Shot on Location: Postwar American Cinema and the Exploration
of Real Place
Murray Pomerance, The Eyes Have It: Cinema and the Reality Effect
Colin Williamson, Hidden in Plain Sight: An Archaeology of Magic and the Cinema
Joshua Yumibe, Moving Color: Early Film, Mass Culture, Modernism
Making Believe
Screen Performance and Special Effects
in Popular Cinema
LISA BODE
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Bode, Lisa, 1970–author.
Title: Making believe : screen performance and special effects in popular cinema / Lisa Bode.
Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, 2017. | Series: Techniques of the moving image
Identifiers: LCCN 2016043412| ISBN 9780813579986 (hardback) | ISBN 9780813579979 (pbk.) |
ISBN 9780813579993 (e- book (epub))
Subjects: LCSH: Cinematography—Special effects. | Digital cinematography. | Human locomotion—Com-
puter simulation. | Movement (Acting)—Technique. | BISAC: PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / His-
tory & Criticism. | TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Television & Video. | COMPUTERS / Digital
Media / Video & Animation. | ART / Film & Video.
Classification: LCC TR858 .B63 2017 | DDC 791.4302/4—dc23LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016043412
A British Cataloging- in- Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Bode
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact
Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibi-
tion is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Informa-
tion Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48– 1992.
www.rutgersuniversitypress.org
Manufactured in the United States of America
To Scot

Contents

Introduction 1
1 Acting through Machines: Fidelity and Expression
from Cameras to Mo- Cap 18
2 Behind Rubber and Pixels: Mimesis, Seamlessness,
and Acting Achievement 43
3 In Another’s Skin: Typecasting, Identity, and the
Limits of Proteanism 70
4 Double Trouble: Authenticity, Fakery, and Concealed
Performance Labor 99
5 Performing with Themselves: Versatility, Timing,
and Nuance in Multiple Roles 128
6 There Is No There There: Making Believe in Composite
Screen Space 154
Conclusion 184
Acknowledgments 195
Notes 197
Index 223
vii

Making Believe