The Eric Morris System
Having published over six books in his theory, Morris claims that his System is derived partly from Lee Strasberg's Method Acting. However, Strasberg's Method focuses too much on craft, according to Morris, and not enough on the actor's instrument. Facing struggle in finding truth, he contemplated his theory while heading the Directors Unit at the Actor's Studio in Los Angeles. Morris' method recognizes the fact that actors have emotional blocks, tension, insecurities and other preventions to achieving a fundamental state of being, and works to clear these blocks, rendering the actor truly organic. In this sense, Morris stresses that acting is essentially living and being. There are seven major obligations to material, according to Eric: 1) Time and Place, 2) Relationship, 3) Emotional Obligation, 4) Character Obligation, 5) Historic Obligation, 6) Thematic Obligation, 7) Directorial Obligation. After recognizing these 7 obligations, there are the choices the actor utilizes to render these emotions, and finally the approach to which the actors use these choices.
The Eric Morris System has received praise from such actors as Jack Nicholson and Johnny Depp.
Read more about this topic: Eric Morris (actor)
Famous quotes containing the words eric, morris and/or system:
“...I discovered that I could take a risk and survive. I could march in Philadelphia. I could go out in the street and be gay even in a dress or a skirt without getting shot. Each victory gave me courage for the next one.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)
“The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.”
—Desmond Morris (b. 1928)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (18561939)