Patrick Swayze's acting
Is it just me or was that terrible acting?
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MovieChat Forums > North and South (1985) Discussion > Patrick Swayze's acting
I like both Swayze and Read in this series. As a child I watched this on Dutch tv. It was quite popular here in the Netherlands too. The friendship between the characters of Swayze and Read was what I enjoyed most.
Today I watched it for the first time since the '80s. I rented the dvd collection. The series is still very watchable, from the storylines to the beautiful score. My children are 15 and 17, both enjoy watching the series too.
For me, this is my favourite role played by Swayze. I know it wasn't perfect, but I like it very much. Swayze was an excellent actor and a decent human being. It's both sad and great to watch him in North and South.
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I actually thought Swayze was pretty good. Not as good as he was in Dirty Dancing or Ghost, but those were better stories and scripts imo as well.
Some of the other actors were more over-the-top than Swayze but I blame that on the directors. I've seen those actors in other things and they were fine. I think the movie-makers didn't have the best understanding of the story so sometimes they did some things wrong.
However, having read the books, I also think they didn't have the best material to work with. Jakes has a tendency at least in those books (I never read his others) to write very black-and-white characters, good or bad, with very little shades of gray, so in other words, the characters just don't act like real people do. He's not good at giving explanations of why people act the way they do in his story. So I can understand how the actors may have struggled to relate to the characters which is why some of the performances are awkward.
Jakes is good at entertaining in a soapy melodrama type of way, but he's no Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky. He's over-rated imo. Maybe if he'd spend as much time writing about his character's backgrounds and motives as he does on their breast size or penis size, he'd have more depth to his characters.
In other words, the actors didn't have the best characters to work with. Swayze said in a TV Guide interview that he saw Orry as very self-pitying, not very likable, and he tried to give him more depth.
That's interesting, rikajessie. Thanks for the explanation as I haven't read the books.
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You're welcome.:)
I would say the movies gave more humanity to the characters than the books do, and tries to give a little more positive fate to some of the characters than the books do.
However, having read the books, I also think they didn't have the best material to work with.
I would agree to John Jakes might not be a world's best writer. However, I think you are undervaluing him. As someone who does not live in North America, and knows little beyond the basic facts of the American Civil War, I find he is able to give the reader some idea of "why" of things happen, not just "what" and develop some interest in a topic in which I hitherto had none. Additionally, that soapy melodrama probably helps to engage, as I was, the casual reader. share
No, I'm not undervaluing his ability to entertain or create interest, simply stating that some of the characters aren't that realistic or easy to understand or identify with.
shareJust you
shareFor the most part he's good. It seems to be in scenes that he has just a single line or something that he seems a bit wooden or as if he's not trying as hard.
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