Book 1: Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons. Chapter 2: Memory of Emotion.

We have a special memory for feelings, which works unconsciously by itself and for itself. It's right there. It is in every artist. It is that which makes experience an essential part of our life and craft. All we have to do is know how to use it.

For example, in a certain city there lived a couple who had been married for 25 years. They had married when they were very young. He had proposed to her one fine summer evening when they were walking in a cucumber patch. Being nervous, as nice young people are apt to be under the circumstances, they would stop occasionally, pick a cucumber, and eat it, enjoying very much its aroma, taste and the freshness and richness of the sun's warmth upon it. They made the happiest decision of their lives, between two mouthfuls if cucumbers, so to speak.

A month later they were married. At the wedding supper a dish of fresh cucumbers was served--and nobody knew why they laughed so heartily when they saw it. Long years of life and struggle came; children and, naturally, difficulties. Sometimes they quarreled and were angry. Sometimes they did not even speak to each other. But their youngest daughter observed that the surest way to make peace between them was to put a dish of cucumbers on the table. Like magic, they would forget their quarrels, and would become tender and understanding. For a long time the daughter thought the change was due to their love for cucumbers, but once the mother told her the story of their courtship, and when she thought about it, she came to another conclusion.

The outward circumstances made these people what they were long years before, in spite of time, reason, and maybe---desire, unconsciously.

They just naturally yielded to themselves to the feelings as they came. They were stronger than any present feeling. It is just as when you start to count, "1, 2, 3, 4," it takes an effort not to continue, "5, 6, etc.". The whole thing is to make a beginning---to start.

This is an actor's fundamental work--to be able "to be" what he desires consciously and exactly.

Book 1: Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons. Chapter 1: Concentration. Part 2

The education of an actor consists of 3 parts.

1. Talent & Technique. The education of his body, the whole physical apparatus, of every muscle and sinew. An hour and a half daily on the following exercises: gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, classical and interpretive dancing, fencing, all kinds of breathing exercises, voice-placing exercises, diction, singing, pantomime, make-up. An hour an a half for two years with steady practice afterwards in what you have acquired will make an actor pleasing to look at.

2. Intellectual and cultural. One can discuss Shakespeare, Moliere, Goethe, and Calderon only with a cultured actor who knows what these men stand for and what has been done in thwarted of the world to produce their plays. ...an actor who knows the world's literature and who can see the difference between German and French Romanticism. ...an actor who knows the history of painting, of sculpture and of music, who can always carry in his mind, the style of every period, and the individuality of every great painter. ...an actor who has a fairly clear idea of the psychology of motion, of psychoanalysis, of the expression of emotion, and the logic of feeling. ...an actor who knows something of the anatomy of the human body, as well as of the great works of sculpture. All this knowledge is necessary because the actor comes in contact with these things, and has to work with them on the stage. This intellectual training would make an actor who could play a great variety of parts.

3. The Education and Training of the Soul. The most important factor of dramatic action. An actor cannot exist without a soul developed enough to be able to accomplish, at the first command of the will, every action and change stipulated. ...the actor must have a soul capable of living through any situation demanded by the author. There is no great actor without such a soul. ...it is acquired by long, hard work, at great expense of time and experience, and through a series of experimental part.

The work for this consists in the development of the following faculties: complete possession of all the five senses in various imaginable situations; development of a memory of feeling, memory of inspiration or penetration, memory of imagination, and, last, a visual memory.

The Sum of All Fears

Memorable Moment:

1.  President Fowler is in the middle of a drill and he receives a call from his wife.  He stops everything to speak with her. Touching.

2.  Nermerov and Ryan meet at the Cremlin for the first time.  Nemerov tells Ryan that his paper about him was incorrect.  "You said I had many girlfriends in college.  I met my wife in my third year and have not looked at another woman since."  Ryan says, "I meant in your first 2 years.  Where you also held the highest honors in English."...all subtitled in English.  What witty banter!