Performance analysis, Life Of Pi
My analysis is of Suraj Sharma playing Pi Patel.
Firstly, lets discuss what he did prior to the role.
To prepare for the role of a part, you have to fit every aspect of what is expected by the Director or, in this case because it is an adaptation of a book, the description of the character ( depending whether the director is following the book like a bible...).
The actor is very fitting to the description of the character,
He isn't too tall, nor too short. (5".9')
The character is healthy due to his involvement with parents, being wealthy, but he then loses much weight due to the abandonment on the boat.
I think Suraj did well to fit the part here because he had to diet and practically starve to look the part.
He fits the ethnicity/nationality of the character.
And he also fits the speaking style as he is from New Delhi, India.
Most of this is not prepared but chosen by the cast director, but the weight is something that takes a lot of mental strength.
He also had to grow out his hair to fit the part too.
The reason he was cast was because,
"Several rounds of auditions ended when director Ang Lee chose Sharma because of his expressive eyes and innocent appearance."
Also
"According to him, Sharma had not only the emotion, but also the "look" of Pi. His "medium complexion" and "average build" were deemed perfect for the role."
To play the part Suraj had to gain a lot of experience, he had to take part in many things, the first was Yoga, he also had to attend acting lessons becuase he is a new actor and has never been in a film before, he also had to learn how to breath, what the ocean was like, because he had not known much about it, along with that he had to learn how to swim, but the toughest was gaining weight and losing weight dramatically. These are hard enough alone, but when you have to do them all, throughout pre production, production and post production, it has to be very difficult. Although he was picked for his looks, he was not picked for his abilities. Which proves quite difficult especially on a deadline too.
This genre of film was Adventure/Drama/Fantasy.
This is quite a range of genres for one film, but also, has a lot of expectations with it too for example, for those genres there is a specific type of acting that you have to do, it's naturalistic, this is because if the director would want the audience to get involved in the film and relate or even question the film, the actor has to make the whole scene seem believable even if the location is surreal.
The character has a main role in the setting of the story ( the narrated start ), in this he has to act very young and nieve, but throughout the film, the actor develops with the the maturing form of the character, there is a second meaning to the film, (which is found near the end ) where the animals on the boat relate to the people on the boat, and the Tiger was ment to represent him and his dealing with the evil inside him, after the killing of his (mother) Orang-utan. Whereas this can be easily hidden by the actors performance, but when analysed further, the performance can be seen to have an underlying theme, with the mental reality and dealing with the underlying metaphor.
In this scene in which Pi (Suraj) is trying to "train" the Tiger, because he has to try and survive with the Tiger, during this scene he has to get a range of emotions across to the audience, ranging from scared, confident, angry and relief.
I think that Suraj did amazingly in this scene because he managed to convey all these emotions without seeming unrealistic, which makes the acting seem more naturalistic, again, involving the audience.
With all these factors included I think that he has managed to adapt and become the character very well to play the part, especially considering the amount of training he had to do.
This genre of film was Adventure/Drama/Fantasy.
This is quite a range of genres for one film, but also, has a lot of expectations with it too for example, for those genres there is a specific type of acting that you have to do, it's naturalistic, this is because if the director would want the audience to get involved in the film and relate or even question the film, the actor has to make the whole scene seem believable even if the location is surreal.
The character has a main role in the setting of the story ( the narrated start ), in this he has to act very young and nieve, but throughout the film, the actor develops with the the maturing form of the character, there is a second meaning to the film, (which is found near the end ) where the animals on the boat relate to the people on the boat, and the Tiger was ment to represent him and his dealing with the evil inside him, after the killing of his (mother) Orang-utan. Whereas this can be easily hidden by the actors performance, but when analysed further, the performance can be seen to have an underlying theme, with the mental reality and dealing with the underlying metaphor.
In this scene in which Pi (Suraj) is trying to "train" the Tiger, because he has to try and survive with the Tiger, during this scene he has to get a range of emotions across to the audience, ranging from scared, confident, angry and relief.
I think that Suraj did amazingly in this scene because he managed to convey all these emotions without seeming unrealistic, which makes the acting seem more naturalistic, again, involving the audience.
With all these factors included I think that he has managed to adapt and become the character very well to play the part, especially considering the amount of training he had to do.
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