Listening - An Art To Win An Oscar

News Peg

The Oscars, considered the biggest and most important film award ceremony every year, were held on Sunday, February 9th.

The South Korean thriller, Parasite, made headlines by becoming the first foreign language film to win both the Best Film and Best Director honors. 

Joaquin Phoenix, after winning a Golden Globe and SAG, also went on to win in the Best Actor category  for his performance in The Joker, while Renee Zellweger won The Best Actress category with her performance in Judy.

The Art in Actors

While for most of us looking at actors and their performances is simply a means for enjoyment, critique, or applause, there is something deeper to the art of acting. There is something special about recognizing and rewarding the best actors - it is recognizing a unique talent or performance.

Though my experiences and skills give me no qualification to speak about what it means to be a good actor, some of the most recognized acting coaches and actors from Matt Damon to Robert De Niro to Clint Eastwood agree that the biggest tool as an actor is the art of listening. 

“Listening is being able to be changed by the other person. It’s not hearing them, it’s not waiting for your cue, it’s not when are they gonna stop so I can talk. It is letting them in.” Alan Alda, the six-time Emmy award-winning actor said.

The beauty of listening is that it is so obvious, natural, innate, and a state of being in every human. And thus, for an actor to recreate something on screen, it must look natural. There is nothing more natural than simply “being.” There is nothing more real than being. Listening falls seamlessly into that category.

Thus what makes a good actor good is his or her ability to simply become the character. And for that to look as real as possible, listening is not only a tool but an essential art.

Does This Apply Only To Acting?

But the fact of the matter is this - the art of listening does not only apply to artists and actors. It applies to all of us.

When we interact with nature, the world, ourselves, and especially each other, listening becomes so essential.

The question certainly arises - whether listening is an art or even a skill for us living in our worlds? Isn’t it something innate already present in us? While listening comes as a natural process, scientists agree that there are levels to listening.

A University of Missouri study showed that listening is our most used communication skill, with the average human spending 45% of his or her communication time listening. Scientists in the study also showed that the average listener retains only 50% of a 10 minute oral presentation, and within 48 hours another 50% of that retention is dropped. In the research, scientists call listening “a skill that requires hard work and anticipation.”

It is true that students who have trained their mind consciously or subconsciously to truly listen and grasp the concepts or topics in school perform at a higher level as well. It is nothing surprising.

And thus, listening cannot be merely an innate feature in humans, but can be mastered, perfected, and practiced - thus making it an acquired skill.

Anyone can draw or paint, but it takes an artist to draw well. Almost anyone can speak, but it takes an orator to speak well.

Similarly, the sense of hearing has its own art and potential for mastery.

As a journalist, one is taught and trained to listen. Courses in graduate schools require students to grasp loads of information from a breaking news report and be able to regurgitate it well. Beyond that, during the process of interviewing the journalist must be able to put himself or herself in the interviewee’s shoes, stay detached, and yet allow the interviewee to be vulnerable. That can only truly happen when one learns to listen properly.

The typical “uh-huh,” “yes, yes,” “for sure,” and “I see,” would clearly look fake and not transparent in front of the individual. And therefore, even in our day-to-day interactions with each, truly listening correlates to both the learning and genuineness.

“I remind myself every morning: nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I need to listen,” said Larry King, the legendary radio host.

Listening Means You Are Being Real

Is it easy to find someone conversing or meeting with another without a purpose of giving or taking? Purely for the purpose of listening to the other’s story?

It is difficult because either motive behind conversing is blatant and organized, like a meeting or interview, or it has its subliminal and subtle individualistic purposes, like conversing because you have fun or to push forth a certain agenda.

And thus, when one comes to truly listen to us and our struggles, pain, happiness, and insecurities, without a hint of judgement, we are taken aback.

To truly listen to someone else means to be empathetic. When one puts away his or her personal agenda, creativity, ego, and desires for that moment, and learns to truly listen to the other, human-to-human, as a shoulder to lean on, empathy is experienced. Listening is, thus, an art for one to master empathy and his or her human-ness.

Alda’s words apply in our day-to-day realm as well. An empathetic listener doesn’t listen to wait for his or her turn, but he or she feels for the other, and is able to be “let in” into the other’s world. 

That is why we applaud an actor who knows how to seep into role because he or she learns to empathize with the character for the sake of the art.

But in our day to day, it is certainly difficult to find such an idealistic listener.

Oscar-nominated Phoenix said it best in his dialogue in The Joker, “Does anyone listen anymore?”