Don't Like - Stare Acting
Two-ish weeks ago I watch Alice Rohrwacher’s new film, La Chimera. I can’t say I loved it but I’m glad to have seen it because it help me codify something I’ve been chewing on about contemporary movies: Stare Acting. Stare Acting is how I describe a certain kind of muted and mysterious portrayal of emotional depth.1 But it’s a facsimile of actual deep emotional acting because all the actors do is a bunch of staring. To be clear, this is different from a character looking at things. They obviously have to look at things.2 Looking at things doesn’t mean staring. There are so, so, so many ways to look at and interact with someone that don’t involve staring. That’s what makes this style of acting so maddening — the actors just stare. They stare at objects, they stare at people, they stare at things up close, they stare off into the horizon, they stare at emotional flashbacks, they stare at people when they’re both in the same room, they stare softly, they stare angrily, and they sometimes stare happily too. And it’s all far too rigid. Staring isn’t easy. People have to comport themselves in a certain manner to stare. It’s a very physical gesture. Used sparingly it can be quite powerful, but it can’t sustain 90 minutes let alone 2 hours of runtime. All that staring gets stale.
The plot of La Chimera is basically that Arthur, played by Josh O’Conner, is a British archeologist living in Italy in the 1980s. Arthur has recently gotten out of jail from being involved in a robbery of ancient Etruscan artifacts. He’s also importantly heart broken over his dead ex-girlfriend Beniamina, who he keeps having flashbacks and visions of a red thread unraveling from her dress. Back in reality, he decides to go see Beniamina’s mom Flora. Maybe he’s trying to get something out of her or maybe he’s trying to be around people who knew Beniamina, too. It’s hard to tell. Shortly after that, he falls back in with his old gang and starts robbing graves of random Etruscans. Why does he do this? Is it for the money? The love of the ancient artifcats? A way to connect with Beniamina? It’s not totally clear but he does have a special gift for locating tombs. It’s a unique method, to be sure, where he holds a stick out and then has visions powerful enough to make the world (and frame) go upside down (literally) before he collapses. It’s a weird party trick.
Anyway, they rob some graves and in the meantime he develops another sort of romance with the woman who lives with Flora named Italia, who is also keeping two kids hidden from Flora. It all moves along with everything in limbo as Arthur keeps having visions of Beniamina. Then one night, he and his gang hit the mother load. They break into a very premium tomb with a wide expanse and a phenomenal centerpiece statue of an Etruscan god. Before the find the spectacular tomb, Italia protests their actions but they pay her no mind. When they open the tomb, the ancient art on walls oxidizes and is ruined by their intrusion. The tombaroli don’t notice or care, and Arthur and his gang end up with the head of the statue after running from the cops, who actually are a rival gang. That gang sells the statue to a mysterious dealer named Spartaco, who Arthur’s gang has also sold things to. This leads to a confrontation during a private sale on a boat where Arthur, in a confusing moment of moral certitude, throws the head of the priceless statue over board. This gets Arthur kicked out of the gang, but strangely this doesn’t seem to be a big deal in the movie either. Moving on, Arthur meets up with Italia again and they share a passionate kiss before Arthur decides maybe that’s not a good idea. He walks away. Some time passes. He joins the rival gang to go steal more treasure and as he goes down into his first tomb with this crew, the tunnel collapses on him. This presumably kills him but before he goes, he has one last vision of him being with Beniamina.
That’s pretty much what happens. There’s a weird lack of gravity to the world of La Chimera, which more than occasionally feels like an extended homage to Fellini. There’s a silly cast of characters and people with highly distinctive faces, but as characters they interest remains skin deep. Rohrwacher doesn’t give them a lot to do, except show up when needed. And then when there is drama, she doesn’t probe it too deeply. Like, Arthur throws a priceless artifact off a boat and then gets to walk off said boat with minor repercussions? What is that. I’ll say this, I might have a better idea if Josh O’Conner ever did more than stare and flail at things every now and then. Instead, he spends the whole movie making faces and staring at stuff as if that was the only way emotions worked. Maybe he’s just not much of a talker, but maybe that’s also not that interesting. This guy is fresh out of jail, having visions of dead ex-girlfriend, seeing her mother, maybe getting involved with her maid, having vivid hallucinations, robbing graves, and crashing boat auctions, all while wearing a white linen suit. This character should be able to share more of his understanding of the world than looking around at stuff with slightly pursed lips. Look:
That’s just a smidgin of the amount of staring that goes in this film, which creates a false sense of profundity. Unsurprisingly, this movie is often described as a meditation or rumination on loss, grief, and personal history. There’s a deep romantic idea within the story. But it never reaches the surface, which is too bad because if it had there would have been a lot to work with. La Chimera’s avoidant nature robs it from being a truly emotionally resonant film. The characters don’t get to explore their thoughts and feelings naturally; instead their thoughts and feelings are foisted upon them. These directorial choices bring a suffocating flatness to the movie. Wrestling with pain, trauma, memory, and the legacy of cultural and interpersonal histories requires more than taught body language. This problem also comes through in the movie’s attempt to comment on the plundering of ancient art and religious artifacts to sell to the highest bidder. It’s too self-evident that what the tomb raiders are doing is wrong. There is nothing that complicates their decision making or show them meaningful reckon with their actions. The only person who voices any big objection to their actions in the movie is Italia, in a rather prosciutto-fisted metaphor. But her objections get passed over as the plot moves on and it’s our loss, especially if the soul of Italy at stake. Great dramas are made from the ingredients found in La Chimera, but those ingredients need to be baked.
This is true for other films as well. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was extremely guilty of stare acting. Cillian Murphy spends practically all three hours of its run time diligently emoting through terse expressions and locked eyes. We never watch him expertly go through the math required to develop a nuclear weapon but the immense weight of that calculation is impressed upon the audience through his tense demeanor. Ironically, it’s kind of a dumb way to play a smart person. To assume that they’re always operating at the most dedicated intellectual level all the time is silly. A brief YouTube search will show you an interview where Oppenheimer is more alive, quick witted, and jovial than Cillian Murphy ever is in the movie. That’s stare acting’s fault. How can characters be expected to fully emote when they only get to say things with their eyes. How much “👀” can an audience be expected to take?
I wrote about this earlier when thinking about Jonathan Glazer’s film The Zone of Interest. Here’s what I said then.
Bird Box accidentally proved this point beautifully.
Furiosa was stare acting to the point where it felt like an action movie where nothing happened.