Karen Black: The Craft of Acting

Filmmaker Russell Brown, who directed the late Karen Black (1939-2013) in 2008's The Blue Tooth Virgin, asked the wide-ranging actress to speak conversationally about film acting from her perspective in this plain presentation that eschews any career retrospective or biography of the Illinois-born star (aside from a disc-extra discussion with critic Ben Mankiewitz). Black attained cult-diva status principally for her roles in horror films (including the classic 1975 TV movie Trilogy of Terror), even though her resume ran the gamut from the critically lauded Five Easy Pieces (1970) and Nashville (1975) to the semi-experimental Rhinoceros (1974) and Conceiving Ada (1997). Seated on a couch, Black plunges into discussing accents, her ability (or not) to judge a worthy script, the differences between stage and screen acting (at least for her), and how she approached playing a transgendered character in the film version of Come Back to the Five & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). Along the way, Black mixes solid, practical advice with on-set gossip, opinion, and self-deprecating humor. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)