Barbara Stanwyck

You're very welcome, patient. Now be sure to pay the receptionist on your way out. This office accepts cash or credit, but no personal checks.



Seriously, I love these extended discussions and dialogues, so thank you for them. As I've written before, I don't think we really disagree here. Good acting is good acting, and believability a very important feature thereof (even if, in my opinion, not the most important).

Thus Stanwyck's break with her own--shall we say?--"persona" (and I know that's not the most apt word, as "persona" probably better refers to the individuals to whom you referred earlier who make the roles them instead of making themselves the roles) ends up leaning more towards reality than artificiality, as in All About Eve and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? for Bette and Stella Davis and The Great Man's Lady for Barbara. (I must confess I'd never seen--or even heard of--the latter.) This is (I think--correct me if I'm wrong) the unity of performance and performer on which you wrote so eloquently before. 

Perhaps it is that unity which breaks the boundaries of reality and artifice that is naturally a part of cinema. Hmm... Food for thought.