Lee Grant: A Vital and Clear Instrument
In Conversation with Tenn
Royal Orleans Hotel
New Orleans
1982
Tenn spoke at great length about the use and
the training of the actor’s body, comparing it to the writer’s use and
placement of words. The soul of an artist, he believed, was revealed by the use
of those tools most vital to their expression. Here are some comments from Tenn
on Grant’s work in film, and her use of her “vital and clear instrument.”
In the Heat of the Night: There is a
moment in that film in which Lee is literally propelled from a seated position
by news that is unbearable for her to hear. It’s extraordinary, and so like the
extremity I’ve witnessed in people when they face an awful reality. Her
physical consummation with [Sidney] Poitier, when she, against her cultural
will, grasps his hand, is also remarkable. Her role is small, but she made me
believe the center—the crime—of that film. Without her, there is no engine on
which that film can run.
Shampoo: I felt that
her character had decided that her youth, her charm, her fecundity were all
gilded butterflies, and she was constantly chasing after them, until she
recognized the futility of the pursuit, and then she began a slow curdling. Her
ability to move from amorous activity to sincere concern—for others, for her
hair, for her carnal needs—is maddeningly sharp.
The Landlord: She seems to
never firmly touch the ground in that film, because the mind-- the ambitions--
of that character are so ethereal and flighty: She doesn’t much like the earth,
even though it has thrown a great deal of its bounty her way. Watch her hands,
and watch her body: It is as if her solar plexus had been filled with helium.
It’s a joyous performance—we feel it from her and we experience it as we watch
her search for her bearings.
Valley of the Dolls: She not only
elevates the text and the intent of her scenes—she elevates the cigarette and
the telephone.
There is, of course,
the artist and the person who houses and husbands and transports the artist
from place to place, job to job. It is impossible, I think, for the artist to
survive if the vessel in which it is housed is dysfunctional or askew or
committed to activities that do not allow for the clarity and the commitment
that are necessary for the work.
On this I speak vividly
and entirely from experience. I have destroyed my vessel, but we have dealt
with that to a great extent already.
The work of an actress
who is committed not only to the character at hand, on the page, but the
character, the spine, the heart, the mind of the woman who must bring this work
to others is instantly recognizable. Look for it. Look for particular
characteristics. In time, you will not need to look so closely or intently: it
will be instantly obvious that you are safe and in the hands of an artist in
control of all vital assets. This is a woman who possesses a character and a
stage. This is an actress who fulfills all the goals of the theatre to which I
am devoted and to which I would like to return.
Look at the work of Lee
Grant. Her stage work is unavailable to you now, both because of your youth and
your location, but you may have the opportunity to see it still. Watch her film
work; watch her in Detective
Story. I saw that on stage and then I saw
the film, where Lee’s work was crystallized and enlarged by [William] Wyler: It
was brought into sharp focus. [Elia] Kazan once praised her by saying that her
characters were so focused and strong that their feet were nailed into both the
stage and the ink of the playwright. I would want that to be said of me if I
were an actress. I would want always to work with an actress like that.
If you watch her in that film—as a sad
and funny shoplifter—she is utterly true. There is no staginess about her. She
is clearly acting—it’s what she does for a living—but I do not recall catching
her in the act of acting: I saw a sad and funny woman, desperate for attention
and affection, and finding it through the commission of a crime and the
requisite duties of the police officers who pity her even as they provide her
with a spotlight, for a time. I do not know if the intentions of Lee or Wyler
were present in the presentation of one of the most remarkable aspects of her
performance, but for a rather extended period of time, her character is
flipping the bird—to the world, her situation, herself, her brother, her
playwright? Who is to know, but it’s on the screen, and so much a part of her
physical characterization that I didn’t catch it until the third viewing. I
find it wholly appropriate.
There is courage in the woman, and
there is courage in her work. I write from anger—at the world, at myself, at a
particular situation in which a character I love finds herself. I don’t think I
am capable of sitting down to write until and unless I am angry about
something. I feel in Lee an anger toward sloth and dishonesty and expediency: I
think she loves her characters and her work and her players deeply, but within
her is a core commitment to avoid and abhor the sloth and dishonesty that is
present in so much work. I have no way of knowing what her desires for her
career might be—I want her to succeed, and I’m sure she shares this wish with
me—but I never see the maneuvers of a careerist in her work. I see an artist.
Clarity. Look for it in all things.
If you find it in an actress—and you’ll find it in Lee’s work—you’ll be able to
find it in the work of a writer or a photographer or an artist or a musician.
Clarity is rarer than one would think. Clarity is not desire or ambition.
Clarity, I suppose, is a gift—a way of seeing things and analyzing them and making
sense of them, and of then sharing what you’ve discerned with others. To have
this ability is extraordinary; to share it is magnificent, perhaps saintly.
Lee Grant has this ability.
I am disposed to loving her, too, I
should add, because it has been brought to my attention that she has come to my
defense on more than one occasion, when my worthiness as a playwright was being
questioned. I trust implicitly the people who have told me of her defense of
me, and I love her for it. These things mean a great deal to people: They mean
a great deal to me.
Lee Grant, winning the Oscar for Shampoo, in an old wedding dress, a touch Tennessee found delightfully Southern. Joel Grey is to her left.
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