Summary Of The Documentary 'The Method Man'

In a documentary called ‘The Method Man’ which was released in 1997, we see opinions of The Method and thoughts on Strasberg himself from people within the world of Hollywood. Additionally, we view footage of his teaching techniques and how it affected his students. It is clear from watching several interviews that there are juxtaposing opinions of him and his approach to teaching, “Nobody had a neu-tral reaction about him. People either were worshippers and acolytes, or they des-pised him”. Even his daughter said, “My father only liked beautiful women, genius-es and psychotics.” From watching the way Strasberg worked with his students, I can only conclude that your opinion of him was entirely dependent on the results you wanted from your work. Meaning that if he was cruel in his teaching approach, how you dealt with it depended on how successful you wanted to be and how much work you were willing to put into your craft. An interviewee who did not have a good experience with Strasberg and The Method said; ‘There were two sides to him, the Mister… You saw all the other terrible sides of him, like he was a ‘schizo’. ‘The Method Man, 1997’ (Eyes on Cinema, 2014)
Monroe became Stras-berg’s first extremely successful actress, directing her in films and teaching her the techniques of The Method. In the documentary, I learnt the relationship they had with one another and how method acting affected Monroe and her life overall. Be-fore being coached by Strasberg in the ‘Actors Studio’, she was already a very suc-cessful performer, starring in films and winning awards for her on-screen perfor-mances. However, she wanted to learn even more about acting technique, and at the time, Strasberg was considered the ‘high-priest’ of the actor coaching world. Strasberg himself felt that Marylin had a raw talent that he could develop and give form