Robert De Niro at Work: From Screenplay to Screen Performance

by Adam Ganz, Steven Price

Overview

Robert De Niro at Work is the first critical study to examine how Robert de Niro, perhaps the finest screen actor of his generation, works with screenplays to imagine, prepare and denote his performance. In categorising the various ways in which De Niro works with a screenplay, this book will re-examine the relationship between actor and text. This book considers the screenplay as above all a working document and a material object, present at every stage of the filmmaking process. The working screenplay goes through various iterations in development and exists in many versions on set, each adapted and personalised for the specific use of the individual and their role. As the archive reveals, nobody works more closely with the script than the actor, and no actor works more on a script than De Niro.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030479596
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	11/09/2020
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Screenwriting
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Adam Ganz is Professor in the Media Arts Department at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Steven Price is Professor in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Film at Bangor University. He is the author of The Screenplay: Authorship, Theory and Criticism and A History of the Screenplay, and former editor of the Journal of Screenwriting.

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Chapter One: Literature Review & overview of De Niro’s Career.- Chapter Two: Research and Exegesis.- Chapter Three: Notation.- Chapter Four: Preparation.- Chapter Five: The Writer’s Voice.- Chapter Six: Case Studies.- Chapter Seven: Actor as Writer.- Conclusion.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The book reveals the level of thought and the close attention to human behaviour underpinning moments that appear instinctive and spontaneous on screen… Robert De Niro at Work offers valuable and revelatory insights into the actor’s process’.” (Philip Concannon, Sight & Sound)

“A major study of his screenplays” (Dalya Alberge, The Daily Telegraph)

“Price and Ganz have together plumbed De Niro’s archives transforming our understanding of his practice as an actor. We now have to reckon with his role as almost virtual co-screenwriter.” (Nathan Abrams, Film Historian)

“For someone famous for playing inarticulate characters, Robert De Niro here stands revealed as a probing, subtle reader of the screenplays he inhabits. With unprecedented access to De Niro’s personal scripts for Taxi Driver and other classics, Ganz and Price show how he ponders a role—assembling clippings andvideo notes, researching costumes and period details, jotting down emotional chords that will blossom into precise expressions, tonalities, and gestures. More broadly, Robert De Niro at Work demands that we rethink how profoundly an actor’s craft shapes the dynamics of screenwriting practice. This plunge into the creative process, deeply informed by a historical awareness of acting traditions, will be of keen interest to aspiring filmmakers and performers. Not least, film fans will gain a new respect for De Niro’s immense gifts.” (David Bordwell, American film theorist and film historian)

“In this intriguing new book, Adam Ganz and Steven Price document Robert De Niro writing to himself. Reading these intimate internal dialogues, we are reminded of the immense, unsatisfied thirst for illusion that is at the core of our being. The authors demonstrate a profound understanding of the process of acting. Robert De Niro at Work is unique in placing theperformer at the centre of the writing process and storytelling by capturing the physical and intellectual relation that actors have to the text, as well as the highly complex journey involved in making it their own.” (Anamaria Marinca, Actor)