Word: strasbergs
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There are no lovably honorable hoods wielding their gats for Michael, no warm family reunions or mutual aid meetings. His major enemy is a Meyer Lansky-modeled criminal mastermind, shrewdly played by Actors Studio Director Lee Strasberg (see box). As Michael plots his careful, lethal moves, the recurring, unforgettable image is of his eyes growing colder, until they finally go dead to the horrors around him. Those eyes somehow manage to dominate a film that is also rich in action. Not once does Pacino overtly ask for the audience's sympathy, but through a disciplined, suggestive performance he dominates...
Anyone who still believes that those who can, do, and those who can't, teach, should watch Lee Strasberg at work in The Godfather, Part II and repent. The most widely known and respected acting teacher in America turns in a cunning and finely tuned performance as Hyman Roth, a Jewish mobster. Strasberg is 73, and this is his movie debut...
...best known for his interpretations-some would say distortions-of Stanislavsky's precepts, practiced most intensely at the Actors Studio in New York City and called casually the Method. Those for whom the Studio and the Method are synonyms of indulgence will be surprised by Strasberg's thorough, precise approach to his role. "A lot of actors, every time you shoot another take of a scene, they do the same action differently," says Francis Coppola. "Not Lee. He always did the same thing. He told me, 'You break your leg, you always break it the same...
...Everyone knew there would be a standoff if we met under formal conditions," says Strasberg, so the meeting was arranged socially. Coppola and Strasberg talked about Toscanini; Coppola's father had played flute with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Soon afterward, Paramount placed the official call. Strasberg told the studio to make him an offer, which he promptly refused. "Ten thousand dollars-that was silly," he sniffs...
Their rise was based on more than matched metabolism and high literacy. Their stagecraft was impeccable. Elaine had been a child actress; before Nichols & May were joined with an ampersand, he had taken classes with Lee Strasberg. The guru of the Actors Studio had helped Mike along financially simply because he was overwhelmed by the kid's "earnestness and directness...