Collection: James Mason

1909 May 15th
Huddersfield, England
Actor

My family were not movie-goers, but I got to the point where I managed to see quite a lot of the silent films, which intrigued me.

I think that proudly I'm more enthusiastic about the more film-scripted [roles] really, because one of the reasons that I've always leaned toward films rather than stage plays is because I'm more interested in .. I respond more to the idea of visual drama rather than just spoken drama, and so I think that sometimes Shakespearean plays can be done magically. I know one or two subjects that could be just beautiful, that haven't been done yet, but nevertheless there is a lot of talk in Shakespeare as a rule, which is a liability, and I was not .. I should mention at this point that many of these films, some of the more important ones, I wasn't necessarily very pleased with myself, particularly my own performances. I was very saddened for instance when I saw Julius Caesar. I wasn't too crazy about it as a film and I was very, very dissatisfied with myself.

Associated Play:

Mountains and rivers along þe Kiso Road, by Utagawa Hiroshige

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