if this seems like a paper, it's because it is:
Am I capable of fooling myself? And so convincingly?
Fortunately or not, I am. To a certain extent, I can even place red pills and blue pills before me or reassure myself that this is all just a dream, that I have yet to open my eyes. But what I see in the movies evoking these images is what Eduardo Calasanz identified as “the paradox of ‘I have my body’ and ‘I am by body’” and how real and thought-provoking this paradox is.
I love to make believe. Not to escape but to explore, one of the biggest reasons why I love these crafts of musical theater and acting for theater. You enter the stage and be a character and the point is to make everyone, including yourself, believe you are that character. Now, one of the greatest actors of all time introduced as part of his system of teaching what he, Konstantin Stanislavski, calls as the Method of Physical Actions. It is a technique that prevents the actor from forcing an emotion and places a distinction between physical action and physical movement. The idea is “to fulfill a simple, concrete, purposeful physical action” which is “the sum total of a complex psychophysical process” compared to physical movement which is a mere mechanical act.
[1] The result is a performance so convincing it moves the audience and your co-actors. But the entire technique rests on an assumption, that a physical action of the body is linked to a specific emotion the actor wants to feel and convey. The assumption has been proven correct and it is a concrete manifestation of how integral my body is to who I am. I am my body.
But science fiction movies such as The Matrix and Vanilla Sky introduce a point—we may have a reality detached from our bodies. Where our body may be in some ooze-filled pod or in some cryogenic machine, we may still be capable of thinking and living out a life we accept as real. The movies even convince me to actually think about it—maybe I am actually just in a pod and merely programmed to think that I am typing this paper right now. If I would dismiss science fiction as mere fiction, I would think about my dreams. I am quite certain that I am in my bed the entire night but how come it feels like I have been exploring so many places, feeling so many emotions, meeting so many people. Going back on stage, there are moments when I am in the saddest, most mournful state but I should be happy because I have to perform that emotion to tell the story. I am not always my body.
Rene Descartes doubted this body and the movies may help prove him right. But whether he and the movies are right or not or whether I am merely fooling myself convincingly now, I do appreciate highly this experience and the experiences my body allows me to think about. As intermediary and in intersubjectivity, my body is integral to who I am but it is not also who I totally am.
So yes, I really am capable of fooling myself and my body is a huge part of it. But it is fortunate that I think I am because it allows me to seriously reflect about it and reexamine the experience. Anyone can take away my body or the opportunity to watch those movies or the chance to be on stage again but no one can take away the fact that I have reflected on it and that I can think about it. My body helps a great deal but that I think, whether mere fooling around or otherwise, is why I am human.
[1] Moore, Sonia. Stanislavski Revealed: The actor’s guide to spontaneity on stage. Applause Theater Books, New York: 1991.
lisnin to Back to You - Goapele
sortof readin Hernando de Soto's The Other Path. Fully Booked is ON SALE!
feelin kinda relieved and well-received. i got in the entablado play i auditioned for, im presenting manalamin this monday thanks to a grant they're awarding me for, and sir lawrence is giving me another chance before a W. all good. plus leo burnett. yes, they're interested.
yipee.
