Two examples:
Saving Private Ryan - Spielberg made the whole main cast go through 2 weeks of “hell week” boot camp. He made them suffer together.
Then he flew Matt Damon in on a private jet, put him up in a nice place, and made the rest of the cast fully aware of it.
So there was actually real animosity towards Damon for not having suffered like they did and you could feel it in the movie.
Inglorious Bastards - Quinton told Eli Roth they were going to shoot the “bear Jew” scene a certain day. He put him in the cave and filmed other things. Only to say they weren’t ready for him.
He did this I think 2 or 3 days in a row.
When Roth finally comes out you can just see in his eyes the craziness and I can’t imagine how it must have felt to finally be set free from this literal cage (cave).
What other examples do you know?
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
These types of tricks are gimmicks and often don’t necessarily create “great” scenes, and instead reduce morale, create resentment and may have a detriment on the whole production. Not to mention the victim of these is often women and often in sexually violent scenarios.
Actors, especially trained ones, already have a process - whether its Meisner, Method, Laban, M. Chekov, etc to deal with stakes, emotion, vulnerability etc and it would behoove directors to at least partially understand that more than trying to invent their own on the hoof.
We don’t hit a Foley artist with a metal bar to make them understand how to make the sound better, we don’t stab the fight choreographer to make them understand knives better, we don’t shoot the LX tech into the sun to understand the difference between INT and EXT, why do it to actors?