Marriage Story: Dissecting the Argument Scene

Recently I've been trying to teach myself about acting and what makes a good performance.

When it comes to reviewing films, performance is often the first thing we comment on. Did we believe the actors? Were we engaged with the characters? Sometimes it's the actors that got us to watch the film in the first place!

Lots of us are able to point out a "good performance" but aren't able to quantify why that performance was good. We don't always know what we're looking for in a good performance we just know when we see one.

To unravel this mystery I have been reading a book called The Art Of Film Acting by Jeremiah Comey, an amazing book I would highly recommend to actors, directors or simply anyone with an interest in how performance works and the techniques used to bring characters to life.

In the book Jeremiah lists stages in analysing a performance to understand what the actors are doing. I have decided that I'm going to apply this method to two of the best performances from late last year. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in Noah Baumbach's Oscar nominated Marriage Story.

If you have not yet seen Marriage Story then I highly recommend you change that. One of my favourite films of recent years and would have made it on my top 25 films of the decade list had I not seen it after new years. The screenplay alone is something truly beautiful and emotional giving Driver and Johansson the scope to deliver complex and compelling performances that completely erased the actors themselves and left only the characters. Today we're going to look at the argument scene to figure out how they did this.

1. Watch the Scene

The argument is the most climactic moment of the film. Nicole and Charlie have been locked in a vicious court fight where they've both been vilified by each other's Lawyers. At this point we've spent time with both of these characters through their struggle, sympathising with them both while coming to understand the faults of their characters which tore them apart.

Until this moment the arguing between them has never been particularly ugly. They were both determined that they were going to be friendly for the sake of their child Henry. Neither of them originally wanted hostility. However, now Nicole is winning the case for Henry to stay in LA with her and Charlie refuses to move out of New York. Tensions begin to rise between the couple. This is mostly brought about through Charlie's frustration that he won't be around to be Henry's dad and Nicole's frustration that Charlie won't move for the sake of the family, refusing to give up her freedom to live where she grew up and always wanted to live throughout their marriage.

2. Study each character separately. Determine the emotion each one is feeling. Does it change? When? Be Specific.

Let's start with Charlie. There is already a lot of tension in the room when the scene begins resulting in an outburst of anger when Nicole first compares him to his father. Until this point she has been trying to provoke him into revealing his feelings instead of being dismissive.

When he turns the table on her and compares her to "the worst parts" of both of their parents he seems to find amusement in her anger, deciding to then strike a low blow comparing her to her mother even in bed. This mean spirited joke is a kind of coping mechanism for Charlie. Using ridiculous and cruel statements like that allows him to avoid the real problems while still expressing his anger.

After this his arguments become more petty, talking about the house work he always did, calling Nicole a "slob". His tone here is more relaxed and again dismissive of her. His frustration still comes through but his anger has simmered to annoyance. This changes with the line "You'll never be happy" when Charlie finally expresses his frustration over Nicole leaving him. However, there is more sadness in his voice this time. He refuses to believe that Nicole wasn't happy with him and feels betrayed by her actions and words. Nicole's line "I think about being married to you and that woman is a stranger to me" cuts him deeply as you can see in his reaction. He does not match her anger, instead being dismissive of her once more, he remembers their marriage very differently as he expressed in the beginning of the scene.

When reminiscing about their situation Charlie begins to get more and more upset. When he says that Nicole used him and that he is the victim he laughs lightly when she tries to dispute it. The notion of her not intending to hurt him seems laughable to him after everything that's been said.

Their argument is now starting to take its toll. There is a weiriness to Charlie's expression and throughout this exchange Charlie's voice isn't raised. It's harsh but not loud, creshendowing into his anger as he stands up, his attempt to bottle his pain with the situation begins to reach breaking point.

As their argument gets louder and harsher Charlie's frustration drives him to punch the wall, a physical expression of his anger. After this release of energy and Nicole's admission to him he tries to bring their emotions back to the subject of his character's want, to not have to move to LA in order to see their son, even though the argument has gone way beyond this.

Nicole calling him out on his selfishness pulls him into a fit of unbridled rage where he hurls at her the most horrible things he can think off. But even after the first sentence his walls begin to crack and we see how truly broken he is. Crying uncontrollably into the carpet, he lets himself be comforted by Nicole. He apologises and we hear the guilt in his voice. He doesn't mean what he said. The sorry could also be for what she has been through while they were married, with him not realising it.

At the beginning of the scene Nicole is logical and calm, trying to prevent their argument from getting ugly. The calmness in her voice is broken quite comically when Charlie compares her mothering to her own mother. You can tell that she is hurt by Charlie's cruel humour but she struggles to match his insults. She says horrible things back to him but there isn't the same venom in them for her as there are for him.

There is frustration for her that Charlie is still not hearing her properly. His cutting words and painting her as the villain clearly upsets her, tears beginning to brim. Her anger only begins to show when Charlie calls her a "hack" her anger is purely a reaction to Charlie.

She doesn't speak as much as Charlie. Her emotions are expressed through her eyes. When she brings up Charlie's cheating it feels like more of a reach to hurt him than it does to express her feelings about it. We know from previous scenes that the cheating wasn't necessarily the full basis for their divorce and that she was unhappy about a year beforehand. At Charlie's speech Nicole seems incredulous of his arrogance and selfishness, almost finding his outburst amusing, letting out a chuckle at the end of it. This leads into Nicole's climactic moment of anger, stomping on the floor as if having a tantrum.

When Charlie says that she's "winning" her anger fades back to sadness and disbelief. Her admission that she loved him more than he loved her is a very vulnerable moment for her character where she puts all her feelings out in the open. When they are once again dismissed by Charlie she feels ignored and betrayed.

After Charlie's outburst of rage she breaks eye contact. Staring at the floor and possibly feeling guilt for all that he's been through. Instead of leaving him she goes to comfort him as the tension in the room seems to dissipate.

3. The Five Arts of Film Acting

According to Comey, being a good film actor can be broken down into five elements. The art of concentration, the art of not knowing, the art of acceptance, the art of giving and receiving and the art of relating.

These skills take a lot of practice but when the camera is turned on should come spontaneously to an actor as they channel the character through themselves and react to the other actor honestly.

This doesn't necessarily mean improvisation. According to Baumbach this argument scene was heavily scripted and choreographed but during rehearsals it's unlikely the actors would have been giving the same level of performance that we saw in the final cut. They would have been giving possibly 10% of a performance. Therefore when it's time for a take they can dial it up to 100% and the emotions feel more genuine, because they are likely hearing their scene partners choice of delivery for the first time.

The Art of Concentration

You can clearly see in the scene that both actors are listening to each other. They're not just thinking about the next line they have to deliver, they are truly listening and reacting to what the other actor is saying and the emotion they're saying it with. Their voices raise and fall to match each others as they bring each other up and down the rollercoaster of emotions. It would be very easy for any actor to scream their way through the whole of this scene, but they don't. There are moments of silence, disbelief and even laughter for both characters. The laughter for both of them is a natural, explosive release of tension which people really do experience in tense scenes.

The Art of Not Knowing

Like I mentioned earlier, this scene was heavily scripted and choreographed but the main performances themselves probably weren't rehearsed at full capacity. Mostly because repeating them for several takes would be emotionally and physically very draining. Charlie's outburst at the end therefore would have had an element of spontaneity to it that Johansson wouldn't have been able to predict.

Part of the idea of not knowing is that you are free from any ideas or judgements during your performance. You must react to all the lines you've been learning for months as if hearing them for the first time. The art of not knowing is one of the most important things for delivering a believable performance because it leaves the actor in a continuous state of anticipation that the camera will pick up on.

At this stage neither of the characters know what the end result is going to be, or who is going to win their case. This shines through with both performances as the argument spirals out of their control and they don't know where they will end up at the end of it.

The Art of Acceptance

To truly accept what is happening in a scene is something that many actors struggle with. In many ways this element requires a somewhat childish imagination. If you think back to the games you would play as a child, you would truly immerse yourself in that reality. It wasn't just pretend it was real which is the kind of blind belief an actor strives for to deliver a truly believable performance. Acceptance is what can separate a good performance from a great one.

During the argument both the actors seem to accept their argument for true hostility which allows their performances to be raw and heartbreaking. The tears in Johansson's eyes are likely to be her own because such horrible things are being yelled at her and she has accepted that those words are meant for her. Similarly Driver's frustration and rage feels like a genuine outburst as Nicole's words provoke him.

The Art of Giving and Receiving

Giving and receiving is all about how you play off the other actors in the scene and how you react to their emotions. Charlie throughout the scene is deflecting Nicole's arguments, refusing to confront the situation until she says something that pushes him to react that way. When Nicole admits to loving Charlie more than he loves her, Johansson is giving all her emotions to Driver. When he doesn't reciprocate them and tries to change the subject you see her heartbreak. Giving and receiving is less about what you think the characters should be feeling and the more about the actual emotions felt by the actors as they accept their surroundings.

The Art of Relating

Relating is the response to that emotion you are receiving from another actor. Verbally or physically. Good actors will respond to their own impulses when relating because that's what makes a scene fascinating. The most clear example of this in the argument scene is Charlie's response to Nicole telling him she doesn't recognise who she was when she was married to him. He doesn't speak, we just see his reaction and his movement. They way he turns away from her, breaking eye contact, his frustration at what she is saying and the underlying grief at losing the life he cherished so dearly.

There is no physical touch between the two actors until the very end but this makes it all the more significant. It re-establishes a connection and you can tell their performances instantly change when it happens. The venom is gone and their voices are softer. The way Charlie hugs her legs as she cries indicates a further need for comfort and affection.

4. How do the performances make you feel? Watch with the sound turned off.

Watching this scene with the sound turns off really tunes you in to how well Johansson and Driver are using these techniques. Even with the dialogue and the tone of their voice gone I can still see the changes in emotions in their facial expressions and the way they move through the blocking.

Obviously for this analysis I've had to watch this scene a ridiculous number of times, and I've noticed a lot more from their performances than I would have done on the initial viewing. Underneath everything said there is still a subtext of love between them. Noah Baumbach has said that Marriage Story is very much still a love story just seen through the eyes of divorce. Both the actors involved have had experience with divorce, Johansson twice personally and Driver through his parents. Both actors will be drawing on their own personal emotions surrounding this subject.

Baumbach is a very autobiographical director and it is hard not to view Marriage Story as a comment on his own divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh. He is an artist where it's near impossible to separate his art from him for better or for worse.

Everytime I watch this scene I feel something. Charlie's outburst at the end especially is still painful for me to watch because there is so much venom behind it even if love is in the subtext.

I hope this post has shed a little light on how actors like Johansson and Driver do their jobs. For more detail I'd really recommend buying or borrowing Jeremiah Comey's book as it has some excellent tips and observations which has really changed the way I watch performance in film.

My next post will probably be a little shorter...