There I said it. I used the word "paradigm." I vowed I never would but I did. It simply fits for the discussion. And what's the discussion? Acting.
Huh?
A little history first. When I first starting doing this blog in July of 2007 (that means everyone still has four months to pick out a nice one year anniversary gift for me) I didn't exactly break the site meter dial for daily hits. I pulled in Oscar posts that I had done on another blog to fill up the first part of the month and then starting posting new material. My first widely read post was in this second batch in July. It was linked to by Kim at MSN Movies Filter and people finally started showing up and looking around. It was on acting. To be more specific, ham acting. You see, as I explained in the post, as an actor myself I fully appreciate the subtlety and nuance of a great understated performance. But sometimes I really love a great over the top hammed up performance.
I was quick to explain that a bad ham actor (the kind most people think of) is a bad actor period, someone who overplays, overemotes and overinflects every move, tear and shout. They're bad, 
they don't know how to do anything else. But a great ham actor is also a great actor who is in possession of so much skill and talent they know when to go over the top and how far to take it. The example that I gave of a truly skilled ham, a great actor who relished in overplaying a role, was Charles Laughton and I stand by it. He was a great actor and one who knew the "whens" and "how fars" of ham acting.
So what does this have to with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire? Well, recently with the passing of Roy Scheider there have been multiple tributes from various bloggers and commenters and almost all saying the same thing: Scheider was a great understated actor, an actor who embodied a role but never made it showy. In a post at the Siren's place, there was a discussion/comparison of Roy Scheider and Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man and while 
reading and engaging in the discussion I kept thinking, "Kelly and Astaire."
It's been said that Fred Astaire made dancing look easy and Gene Kelly made it look hard. Both were skilled and both shared similar gifts. Astaire could tap his way through a room full of mousetraps without setting one off and Kelly could do graceful ballets with his co-stars where not a shoe was tapped. But they were known for just the opposite. Astaire worked and rehearsed tirelessly to make his dancing appear graceful, elegant and effortless. Kelly worked and rehearsed tirelessly to make his dancing appear athletic, vigorous and difficult. Both have their supporters and detractors and yet neither has ever fully taken the lead in the "who's better" game. There's room for both.
And so we're back to acting: Gene Kelly actors and Fred Astaire actors. Not necessarily hammy and understated as in that July post. No, no. More, a performance or performer that is athletic and another that is graceful. Vigorous versus Elegant. The obvious starting point for me with this is Dustin Hoffman and Roy Scheider. Hoffman attended the Kelly school, Scheider the Astaire school. And I probably prefer the Astaire school but I get a big kick out of many of the Kelly school graduates too.
I'm still in the process of thinking this through; that is, who fits where, who attended which school? So for now I'll throw out some names of actors (excluding silent actors because that's a style all its own) for each and you tell me if you agree or not, or who should be on the list.
The Kelly School:
Dustin Hoffman
Meryl Streep
Paul Muni
Bette Davis
Burt Lancaster
Jack Nicholson
Susan Hayward
The Astaire School:
Roy Scheider
Greer Garson
Spencer Tracy
Irene Dunne
Laura Linney
Deborah Kerr
Cary Grant
That's my initial "off the top of my head" list. Some actors, like Katherine Hepburn, I feel attended one school and then transferred halfway through their term. They can be either. Others, like James Cagney, I can't place at all. He had an intensity to his portrayals, and yet he felt very natural at the same time. So that's the list for now but the Spring Semester starts soon and we've got to get these kids enrolled. Someone else take over the schedule from here. I've got to work on my syllabus.
