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James Franco on his 'General Hospital' stint: It's performance art
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James Franco has finally said what he's doing on "General Hospital."The "Pineapple Express" and "Spider-Man" star says he took a role on the ABC soap opera as an exercise in performance art, a subject he's been fascinated with for years and wanted to experiment with himself.
OK. Sure.
In an essay for the Wall Street Journal, he writes that his two-month arc, in which he plays a mysterious artist named Franco, is meant to "disrupt the audience's suspension of disbelief."
"No matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn't belong to the incredibly stylized world of soap operas," Franco writes. "... In performance art, the outcome is uncertain -- and this was no exception. My hope was for people to ask themselves if soap operas are really that far from entertainment that is considered critically legitimate. Whether they did was out of my hands."
Franco also discourses on the history of performance art, and notes that in three days of filming on "General Hospital," he got through enough material to run for 23 episodes. He also teases that "There will be one more step."
"After all of the Franco episodes are aired, my character's storyline will be advanced in a special episode filmed in a 'legitimate' New York gallery," he writes. "One more layer will be added to this already layer-heavy experiment. If all goes according to plan, it will definitely be weird. But is it art?"
Good question. What do you think?
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Well I agree that Soap Operas are an art form if they werent so many theater buffs wouldnt be in them. Now I agree with some people who say that soap opera isnt quality acting "to a certain extent" the younger actors on soaps have to learn the ropes plus there cheap. But then there are the older actors who came from the theater were its mainly there day job to fund side projects.
I found his role intriguing in the beginning, but now find that they are dragging it out which will become annoying very quickly. I don't find him to be taking me out of the soap, so that's a good thing, but I hope the journey pays off on the Jason storyline.
this is what happens when you go to college for a film/writing degree and actually buy into all the crap your professors tell you. you can just hear the academicians speaking through his mouth.