Method to Their Madness

Recommendations & Review

from HBO’s Succession

My aim with Recommendations and Review posts is to integrate them in some recognizable way with the rest of what I offer on Homo Vitruvius, which is some of my creative writing and a representation of the intellectual interests that shape my thought. That seems reasonable and coherent, and we Vitruvians, in the spirit of Leonardo, are both rational and creative.

These days, those interests have much to do with Magellan and the early Renaissance, as currently seen in the Magellanic Diaries, but those pursuits often lead me far afield, and I have lots of other interests that inform my work, too, more like the universal background radiation from the Big Bang.

Acting, for instance. I acted in high school, until I revealed that I couldn’t hit the acting equivalent of the curve ball. I also couldn’t hit the baseball curve ball. (I wasn’t that great with the fastball either, though I did hit with power when I connected, so maybe there’s a metaphor there.)

Film, too. If you’re a film lover — a cineaste as we say — and you don’t have a subscription to the Criterion Channel, you are missing access to one of the great libraries of the great films of world cinema. It’s like every art house cinema of the New York of my youth all together, without the odd site lines, old seats, and sticky floors. (I’m presuming.)

Currently on Criterion, amid so many other classics and themes, is a collection of films highlighting great Method acting. It is introduced by a 46-minute filmed conversation, with clips, among Ethan Hawke (who recently directed a documentary bio-film on fellow Method actor Paul Newman) and Vincent D’Onofrio, two famed devotees of the Method, and cultural critic and writer Isaac Butler, author of “The Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Act.” It is simply one of the most compelling and engrossing conversations I’ve listened in on in a long time. Twice already. It captured my rapt attention the way a thriller does, so attentive I became to every new and fascinating insight. And there are dozens. Hawke and D’Onofrio are two passionate and articulate practitioners of their art. Butler may now be the foremost authority on the history of the Method. They discuss that history, films, actors, and scenes with enormous intelligence. I can’t recommend it highly enough.