Minor Project: Potenital scene- Locke

The next scene for my consideration is the monologue to Ivan Locke's father in the film Locke, to give some context to this, Ivan is driving to the hospital to deliver a baby which he has had through a one night stand while working away from his wife. In this scene he is ranting at his father who isn't there about how he is a better man than his father and how he is doing the right thing by driving there.

(The scene in question is up to about 1 minute 50)

Straight off the bat I'd like to say that despite my great love for this film and these scenes, there are a few reasons why I don't think it is viable straight off the bat, firstly it is in a car at all times and realistically doesn't work in any other setting, this heavily limits the freedom I would have to experiment with the actor unless we put the car in the studio, but this presents an issue with lighting and with the driving aspect as it would be difficult to replicate actual driving with such a limited time frame for experimentation, and as this is a module on acting not advanced lighting, I feel that it would be a lot of effort for something I ultimately wouldn't benefit too much from. 

All that in mind, there is still a lot to be praised in this scene, particularly the imagination aspect, Tom Hardy displays one of the key aspects that Stanislavsky in particular loves to play on, and thats imagination, the whole scene relies upon it, the way in particular that Hardy reacts to the silence from a person who isn't there is incredible. He says something and then his character seems to get agitated by the fact that no response is forth coming and its this level of depth into a character I would love to be able to replicate through one of the actors I work with. The monologue format however, has both benefits and drawbacks, it would be beneficial because it would mean I can work very closely with the actor and really nail down the character and it essentially means all of my focus and effort is poured into getting one good performance. Contrary to this though, the drawback of just putting everything into one performance is the fact that there'll be no one to compare to at the end of the process, whereas with two actors I can easily compare the two and see how they play off of each other and also how the two of them have progressed from the starting point. Despite ruling it out as my final piece almost completely it would then seem a little strange for me to include it in my research and I will explain why I have done so now, firstly because the acting is exemplary, it really is impressive how hatred and competition is conveyed through two characters despite one not being real or even there being any evidence of him there. On top of this I feel like I could almost certainly use this scene as an example to demonstrate to my actors the kind of subconscious movements that are expected with acting that inhabits the mind of a character. In addition to this, I could quite easily also use this scene as an exercise for character building with a sofa and some chairs to get the actor in the minds set, as it wouldn't be a final production the look has no relevance only the result of getting an actor fired up. 

So, in summary, the scene is too complex for it to be my final production scene, but it may well still be useful should I be able to implement it into some kind of training or warm up exercise. This is mainly due to the quality of the performance and the incredible use of imaginative acting.