More notes on stuttering
January 15th 2011 23:59
* I'm a stutterer, but I don't normally stutter when I'm acting, and -- oh, the irony -- I couldn't pretend to be a stutterer if a role required it of me.
Speech therapists will often say the same -- they'd find it very difficult to imitate a stutter, though they're around stuttering all day.
* At the most basic level, do Firth's stammers seem involuntary or intended, and do his blocks, his inability to say particular things, seem genuine or faked? What, if anything, did Firth's performance lack with respect to stuttering?
Well, as I've mentioned, I very much doubt I could do better, though one might think I'd have an advantage; and the point isn't to have a go at Firth (he did an excellent job), but to try to articulate something, to try to describe something.
So if you wanted to be ridiculously overpicky, perhaps he (and writer and director) could have done more to convey:
-- (a) the variety of stuttering -- you've got this block for a particular word or sound, and you work at it, and you try all these different ways to get past or around it;
-- (b) the acute awareness of audience;
-- (c) intentional stutters;
-- (d) knowledge of words that you always have trouble with;
-- (e) knowledge that you're about to have trouble with this particular word;
-- (f) (ineffective) attempts to conceal a stutter or minimize its effects (for instance, volume variation, muffling, glossing over something or saying it quickly, defensive laughter, apology, convoluted word avoidance, using gestures and facial expressions, using sentence fragments).
Some elaborations and random thoughts...
* From memory, Michael Palin's comic performance does a better job of capturing the mechanical side -- that is, it was more realistic, more convincing. (And so was the boy who greets Firth outside Rush's room.)
What Firth does well is convey something of the internal -- the isolation, worry, tension, embarrassment, humiliation, etc, etc -- and he also does a great job of physical effects that accompany the stutter -- for instance, going red in the face from the effort.
* Rather than realistic stuttering (very difficult to replicate), Firth often uses catches in the throat, choking, and silences -- which, granted, were drama-wise effective as a substitute.
* The silences of a real stutterer are filled or are active, whereas an actor's silences are often empty.
A stutterer is never quiet for the sake of it, but is continually doing something, trying to pronounce something, trying to think tactically, trying to get meaning across -- often using the silence itself to mean something. (Rush touches on this when he's helping Firth prepare for the big finale speech.)
* We use the single word "stuttering", but presumably there are a variety of causes. Like asthma, it may be a condition that we label via symptoms rather than causes.
* We use the single word "stutter", but there are a variety of fluency disturbances, including: repetitions of phrases, words, syllables, sounds; drawn-out words; word avoidance (eg having to stop and think to yourself to find an alternative expression, or coming up with something awkward/weird/convoluted instead of the obvious way of saying things); awkward explosions or incorrect sounds when you try to force it; unnaturally deliberate, emphasised, or careful speech; leaning on, or overuse, of expressions like "um", "I mean", "you know"; unfree breathing -- held breaths, uneven breathing; imploring the other person to help you complete the sentence; laughing a stutter off; multiple attempts, in slightly different ways, at saying a word; and simply giving up when a word proves too difficult to get out.
* In real life, most people aren't consciously aware of other people's stuttering. The amount you can get away with is surprising, though it does depend on the type of stutter.
After all, there's a lot of fluency disturbances in natural non-stuttering speech. People stumble when they're nervous or put under pressure, when they're ill, when the environment is noisy, when they're preoccupied...
* Even repetitions have their own variety -- slow or fast -- obvious or barely noticeable -- loud or soft -- awkward or automatic and habitual.
Stuttered repetitions are often difficult to copy. One can hear the difference between a nervous tic, and an actor repeating the same word quickly. It's almost as if you sense the different thoughts, thinking, time to think, that go into the different stutters, and also into the sentences that lead up to them ("He was preparing for that stumble" vs "Whoa! Where did that come from?").
* Sometimes a stutterer's repetition is intentional, perhaps applied to words they wouldn't normally stutter on -- because they're restarting their attempt at getting past a block, because they're reassuring themselves with what they are able to say, because they're trying to help the audience keep the thread of their meaning, or because they're trying to "cover up" in some probably futile way, for instance pretending that the stutter was for emphasis.
* Stutterers pay a lot of attention to the effect of their stuttering. They're tracking the audience's impatience, ability to understand, level of hostility, they're tracking time, and they're tracking the effect, communication, miscommunication of the sounds that do emerge. "Does what I've said, interpreted before the sentence is complete, convey the wrong meaning?" "Does the sound I just made give the wrong impression?" "Have I or haven't I lost them?" "Have they given up trying to make sense, and written me off as an idiot?" "Are they having a quiet laugh at me?" "Are they too lost in superiority or pity to pay any heed to what I'm saying?" "Were they surprised by the initial stutter, and missed the start of what I was saying?" "Will I have to repeat it all, and go through all this again, just so they get it?"
* In natural non-stuttering speech, people use lots of sounds that you won't find in any dictionary, but which still carry meaning or imply something about the speaker or their thoughts.
To get some sense of this, watch a children's cartoon and pay attention to the noises the characters make.
* One reason for intentional restarts is that you're trying to to use words on a more-than-just-content level, and your stutter has ruined the attempt. So it's sometimes like a musician/dancer/gymnast false starting, then trying again.
Don't think of words as just "content". One weaves a spell with words, evokes emotion, creates moods, builds up rhetorical emphasis, builds up patterns, evokes thoughts and ways of thinking, etc. This is obviously true of poems and speeches, but to some extent applies to everyday conversation -- every joke you tell is more than just content, and involves mental effects, leaps, connections.
Speech therapists will often say the same -- they'd find it very difficult to imitate a stutter, though they're around stuttering all day.
* At the most basic level, do Firth's stammers seem involuntary or intended, and do his blocks, his inability to say particular things, seem genuine or faked? What, if anything, did Firth's performance lack with respect to stuttering?
Well, as I've mentioned, I very much doubt I could do better, though one might think I'd have an advantage; and the point isn't to have a go at Firth (he did an excellent job), but to try to articulate something, to try to describe something.
So if you wanted to be ridiculously overpicky, perhaps he (and writer and director) could have done more to convey:
-- (a) the variety of stuttering -- you've got this block for a particular word or sound, and you work at it, and you try all these different ways to get past or around it;
-- (b) the acute awareness of audience;
-- (c) intentional stutters;
-- (d) knowledge of words that you always have trouble with;
-- (e) knowledge that you're about to have trouble with this particular word;
-- (f) (ineffective) attempts to conceal a stutter or minimize its effects (for instance, volume variation, muffling, glossing over something or saying it quickly, defensive laughter, apology, convoluted word avoidance, using gestures and facial expressions, using sentence fragments).
***
Some elaborations and random thoughts...
* From memory, Michael Palin's comic performance does a better job of capturing the mechanical side -- that is, it was more realistic, more convincing. (And so was the boy who greets Firth outside Rush's room.)
What Firth does well is convey something of the internal -- the isolation, worry, tension, embarrassment, humiliation, etc, etc -- and he also does a great job of physical effects that accompany the stutter -- for instance, going red in the face from the effort.
* Rather than realistic stuttering (very difficult to replicate), Firth often uses catches in the throat, choking, and silences -- which, granted, were drama-wise effective as a substitute.
* The silences of a real stutterer are filled or are active, whereas an actor's silences are often empty.
A stutterer is never quiet for the sake of it, but is continually doing something, trying to pronounce something, trying to think tactically, trying to get meaning across -- often using the silence itself to mean something. (Rush touches on this when he's helping Firth prepare for the big finale speech.)
* We use the single word "stuttering", but presumably there are a variety of causes. Like asthma, it may be a condition that we label via symptoms rather than causes.
* We use the single word "stutter", but there are a variety of fluency disturbances, including: repetitions of phrases, words, syllables, sounds; drawn-out words; word avoidance (eg having to stop and think to yourself to find an alternative expression, or coming up with something awkward/weird/convoluted instead of the obvious way of saying things); awkward explosions or incorrect sounds when you try to force it; unnaturally deliberate, emphasised, or careful speech; leaning on, or overuse, of expressions like "um", "I mean", "you know"; unfree breathing -- held breaths, uneven breathing; imploring the other person to help you complete the sentence; laughing a stutter off; multiple attempts, in slightly different ways, at saying a word; and simply giving up when a word proves too difficult to get out.
* In real life, most people aren't consciously aware of other people's stuttering. The amount you can get away with is surprising, though it does depend on the type of stutter.
After all, there's a lot of fluency disturbances in natural non-stuttering speech. People stumble when they're nervous or put under pressure, when they're ill, when the environment is noisy, when they're preoccupied...
* Even repetitions have their own variety -- slow or fast -- obvious or barely noticeable -- loud or soft -- awkward or automatic and habitual.
Stuttered repetitions are often difficult to copy. One can hear the difference between a nervous tic, and an actor repeating the same word quickly. It's almost as if you sense the different thoughts, thinking, time to think, that go into the different stutters, and also into the sentences that lead up to them ("He was preparing for that stumble" vs "Whoa! Where did that come from?").
* Sometimes a stutterer's repetition is intentional, perhaps applied to words they wouldn't normally stutter on -- because they're restarting their attempt at getting past a block, because they're reassuring themselves with what they are able to say, because they're trying to help the audience keep the thread of their meaning, or because they're trying to "cover up" in some probably futile way, for instance pretending that the stutter was for emphasis.
* Stutterers pay a lot of attention to the effect of their stuttering. They're tracking the audience's impatience, ability to understand, level of hostility, they're tracking time, and they're tracking the effect, communication, miscommunication of the sounds that do emerge. "Does what I've said, interpreted before the sentence is complete, convey the wrong meaning?" "Does the sound I just made give the wrong impression?" "Have I or haven't I lost them?" "Have they given up trying to make sense, and written me off as an idiot?" "Are they having a quiet laugh at me?" "Are they too lost in superiority or pity to pay any heed to what I'm saying?" "Were they surprised by the initial stutter, and missed the start of what I was saying?" "Will I have to repeat it all, and go through all this again, just so they get it?"
* In natural non-stuttering speech, people use lots of sounds that you won't find in any dictionary, but which still carry meaning or imply something about the speaker or their thoughts.
To get some sense of this, watch a children's cartoon and pay attention to the noises the characters make.
* One reason for intentional restarts is that you're trying to to use words on a more-than-just-content level, and your stutter has ruined the attempt. So it's sometimes like a musician/dancer/gymnast false starting, then trying again.
Don't think of words as just "content". One weaves a spell with words, evokes emotion, creates moods, builds up rhetorical emphasis, builds up patterns, evokes thoughts and ways of thinking, etc. This is obviously true of poems and speeches, but to some extent applies to everyday conversation -- every joke you tell is more than just content, and involves mental effects, leaps, connections.
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