Acting with the Camera
Some strong writing about film critics’ failure to really examine the craft of acting (right here, guilty as charged), and how cinematography has changed how actors work:
Film criticism infrequently considers whether real life is a valid criterion for judgment. It almost never reflects on the possibility that what makes a performance memorable can be precisely what makes it not believable: i.e., the larger-than-life mannerisms and bits of business with which an actor will embellish a role. Critics praised Sean Penn for the realism of his “prison yard hunch” in his Oscar-winning performance of Jimmy Markum, the ex-con in Mystic River. But why are hunched shoulders the sign of having been in prison? How many reviewers are familiar with ex-cons? Penn’s prison yard hunch is as much a fabrication as Marlon Brando’s Godfather mumble, and probably just as far from reality. It represents our idea of something, not necessarily the thing itself.
He hits the nail on the head when he says “to the extent that acting does seem more real today, it’s because the camera moves so fast off the face that it shaves off any sliver of inauthenticity.” When actors only have to be ‘in the moment’ for a second at a time, acting is more about mugging. Check out British cinema–particularly the work of Mike Leigh–for superior performances with long, long takes.
art 
Glenda Robinson