A character with a visor was a mistake
- Thread starter You_Will_Fail
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Well clearly I disagree since I feel that the character of Geordi was somewhat distant to me since I couldn't see his eyes. I feel that if an actor can not show his eyes in a film, then its a serious disadvantage they can't really make up.
http://sonlightpicturesblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/film-acting-its-all-in-the-eyes/
A quick google brings up this blog post (and a million others)
No one is saying eyes aren't important in acting just that they're not the ONLY thing an actor can use to express emotion and feeling. And giving them a handicap like taking away their ability to express with their eyes can be a benefit because they'd have to express more with the rest of their face. Burton does a very good job of expressing with his brow, of instance.
You're focusing on one aspect (the lack of seeing his eyes) rather than using YOUR eyes to see the entire picture.
You're focusing on one aspect (the lack of seeing his eyes) rather than using YOUR eyes to see the entire picture.
Except its not a benefit, because no other part of the body is as emotionally and deeply expressive as the eyes. We make connections with people through their eyes.
The voice can be easily adjusted as can facial muscles to estimate and imitate an emotion. The eyes have something immeasurable about them that relay emotion in a much truer sense, its a lot harder to just change your eyes to estimate an emotion without actually feeling it and therefore giving a truer performance.
Great contribution to the thread there. I'm just trying to get across the point of what makes up a good acting performance and how actors can emotionally connect with people watching them on screen, something people here seem bizarrely ignorant of.
:facepalm:
There's lots of other palces to connect with. The brow, the mouth, the laugh lines, the entire face. You're focusing a lot on the eyes which, yes, are important but it's not the only thing! The "benefit" of obscuring the eyes on Burton's part is that it'd force him to be more expressive with his whole face instead of relying on just his eyes to tell the "whole story."
Again, I say that you're the only person here that's hugely being all about the eyes other people are saying that Burton was able to express his emotional well enough in spite of the "handicap" of the VISOR on his ability to express. You're clearly in the minority here, that should tell you something.
Burton did a great job portraying Geordi and not once in the twenty years I've been watching the show have I had any trouble "connecting" with him or seeing his emotion. Sadness, anger, disappointment, glee. All came across greatly with him in spite of the VISOR. Watch him emote as he cries over not being able to see in "The Naked Now," or watch his sadness over the downfall of his date in "Booby Trap", or the glee, anger, and such he shows in dealing with the real Leah Brahms in "Galaxy's Child." The frustration, friendship and joy in sharing stories when dealing with Scotty in "Relics."
Burton didn't need his eyes to make Geordi an expressive character.
There's lots of other palces to connect with. The brow, the mouth, the laugh lines, the entire face. You're focusing a lot on the eyes which, yes, are important but it's not the only thing! The "benefit" of obscuring the eyes on Burton's part is that it'd force him to be more expressive with his whole face instead of relying on just his eyes to tell the "whole story."
Again, I say that you're the only person here that's hugely being all about the eyes other people are saying that Burton was able to express his emotional well enough in spite of the "handicap" of the VISOR on his ability to express. You're clearly in the minority here, that should tell you something.
Burton did a great job portraying Geordi and not once in the twenty years I've been watching the show have I had any trouble "connecting" with him or seeing his emotion. Sadness, anger, disappointment, glee. All came across greatly with him in spite of the VISOR. Watch him emote as he cries over not being able to see in "The Naked Now," or watch his sadness over the downfall of his date in "Booby Trap", or the glee, anger, and such he shows in dealing with the real Leah Brahms in "Galaxy's Child." The frustration, friendship and joy in sharing stories when dealing with Scotty in "Relics."
Burton didn't need his eyes to make Geordi an expressive character.
Which everyone accepted whilst casually suggesting that the eyes are not necessarily the be-all end-all of acting tools, something you seem bizarrely ignorant of.
There's only so physically "expressive" you can be before you start to just mug. And I'm pretty sure Burton didn't want to start overacting with all his facial muscles and expressions just because he had no eyes, because he knew how ridiculous that would look. You're incredibly clinical with how you approach a performance, listing all the areas that can move with an emotion and ignoring the intangible.
Without the eyes in a performance, how could we tell the difference between a real smile and a fake smile? God knows, people smile when they're not feeling it enough in life, and a fake smile is always betrayed by the eyes which fail to light up with the face. These kind of nuances and more subtle emotions can't be expressed without visible eyes on a person or an actor.
It seems that you have a very shallow and clinical understanding of emotion or performance, that's all everything you've said tells me.
They're the most important, and apparently many people here can't tell how emotional someone is without some facial muscle moving somewhere or their hands flailing about.
Not just ignorant but steadfastly against even acknowledging or accepting!
You're being annoyingly obtuse. I don't need exaggerated facial expressions to tell emotions as, yes, the eyes can be very important in that regard. But in lieu of the eyes there are other ways to tell! Not seeing Geordi's eyes didn't prevent me from connecting with his character or emotions as there were other ways to see the emotion!
You're being annoyingly obtuse. I don't need exaggerated facial expressions to tell emotions as, yes, the eyes can be very important in that regard. But in lieu of the eyes there are other ways to tell! Not seeing Geordi's eyes didn't prevent me from connecting with his character or emotions as there were other ways to see the emotion!
Its not about identifying what the emotion is meant to be, its about the actor conveying an emotion to the maximum effect through a camera lens. The eyes are their most important tool and its silly to say they can fully make up for that loss by using other acting features (brow, facial gestures, hands etc) because they can't. If an actor loses their main acting tool, I don't believe that they can give the maximum depth and emotion possible, although that's hardly to say they can't do a decent job.
Any good actor can make their eyes light up as well as their face, and not just give a fake smile with dead eyes.
You know... I think somewhere there's a nice brick-wall waiting for me to beat down with my head. At first I thought going through that effort would be pointless and futile but now I'm beginning to think it might be worthwhile.
I don't even know why this has turned into a big thing. YWF, you asked for opinions, people gave them. Why argue?
In your opinion.
In your opinion.
That's right, you don't believe. Okay, so you can't connect with an actor who covers their eyes? That's your problem not ours. Why assume...no, why demand that others are wrong?
Pray tell, by what method other than movements of muscles does an actor express emotions through his eyes?
As has been pointed out multiple times, what you refer to as "the eyes" are actually the parts of the face surrounding the eyes which move and change. The eyelids are the only part being hidden in Geordi's case. Eyelids are not an actor's "main acting tool".
Can you give an example of an emotion that is apparent only in the part of the face which the visor covers without spreading outside that area? Given how all the muscles are connected, I would think this is physically impossible.
By the way, how do you feel about Odo?
I don't understand how the majority of you are saying that the eyes aren't one of the most important aspects of acting. I was in a lot of plays in both highschool and afterwards, and we were PREACHED AT and PREACHED AT that we needed to learn how to convey the emotions we were tying to with our eyes. Ask ANY actor what helps them convey emotion the best, and 99 times out of 100, the answer will be the eyes. The eyes are the mirror to the soul.
Has no one ever fallen in love with someone's eyes? My girlfriend has the most beautiful eyes, and I can get lost in them. When I was a child, my mother could tell if I was lying to her or not just by looking into my eyes. I can tell when someone is in pain, even if they have no facial indications, by looking at their eyes.
Yes, of course, there are other ways to express emotion with the face, but to me that is lazy acting. The best actors, in my opinion, are the ones who can simply look into the camera and have what they are feeling conveyed solely through their eyes.
Ultimately, Burton was able to convey a lot of emotion without the use of his eyes (which is a credit to his acting ability), but I think (just as the OP does) that he could have been so much better being able to use his eyes. Just the simple fact that he was so worried about having to cover his eyes shows just how important actors view the eyes in their performance.
Has no one ever fallen in love with someone's eyes? My girlfriend has the most beautiful eyes, and I can get lost in them. When I was a child, my mother could tell if I was lying to her or not just by looking into my eyes. I can tell when someone is in pain, even if they have no facial indications, by looking at their eyes.
Yes, of course, there are other ways to express emotion with the face, but to me that is lazy acting. The best actors, in my opinion, are the ones who can simply look into the camera and have what they are feeling conveyed solely through their eyes.
Ultimately, Burton was able to convey a lot of emotion without the use of his eyes (which is a credit to his acting ability), but I think (just as the OP does) that he could have been so much better being able to use his eyes. Just the simple fact that he was so worried about having to cover his eyes shows just how important actors view the eyes in their performance.
And no one is saying that using eyes isn't important when it comes to acting and expressing emotion, just that Burton was effectively able to do it anyway and that many of us had no problems whatsoever connecting with Geordi and his emotions in spite of not being able to see his eyes.
