Dimissionstale på Tisch School of the Arts

Robert De Niro

  • År: 2015
  • Sted: New York University Tisch School of the Arts, USA

Analyseret af
Jens Højager Christensen & Johanne Marie Legarth Ryge Vig, retorikstuderende ved Københavns Universitet

“You're here to pause and celebrate your accomplishments so far, as you move on to a rich and challenging future.”

Hvorfor er denne tale interessant?

Talen er et godt eksempel på en humoristisk tilgang til en klassisk genre, hvor ironi, fortællinger og talers etos er i højsædet. Robert De Niro benytter sin position som anerkendt skuespiller til at tale til en skare, der højst sandsynligt idoliserer ham. Han er netop god til at trække på sin erfaring, og han er enormt bevidst om sit publikum. Selvom det er en lang tale, er man godt underholdt hele vejen. Dette kommer især til udtryk, hvis man ser en optagelse af talen eksempelvis på YouTube og samtidig følger med i manuskriptet.

Den retoriske situation

Talen er en klassisk dimissionstale, hvor taleren typisk er en anerkendt rollemodel for de unge dimittender. Dette er en tale af skuespiller Robert De Niro afholdt på TISCH, som er et anerkendt universitet i New York, som uddanner folk i film- og teaterbranchen. Talen er epideiktisk - på moderne dansk altså en lejlighedstale eller en hyldesttale. Robert De Niro skal med talen formå at sætte ord på de nyuddannedes tanker, som hovedsageligt handler om, hvordan deres fremtid skal forme sig.

Video:

Dean Greens, deans, University Leadership, faculty, staff, parents, friends, and the 2015 class of New York University’s TISCH School of the Arts.

Thank you for inviting me to celebrate with you today. TISCH graduates, you made it!

And you’re fucked. Think about that. The graduates from the college of nursing, they all have jobs. The graduates from the college of dentistry, fullyemployed. The Leonard M Stern School of Business graduates, they’re covered. The School of Medicine graduates, each one will get a job. The proud graduates of the NY School of Law, they’re covered, and if they’re not, who cares? They’re lawyers. The English majors are not a factor. They’ll be home writing their novels. Teachers, they’ll all be working. Shitty jobs, lousy pay, but still working. The graduates in accounting they all have jobs. Where does that leave you? Envious of those accountants, I doubt it. They had a choice. Maybe they were passionate about accounting, but I think it’s more likely that they used reason and logic and common sense to reach for a career that could give them the expectation of success and stability. Reason, logic, common sense? At the TISCH School of Arts? Are you kidding me? But you didn’t have that choice, did you? You discovered a talent, recognised your ambition and developed a passion. When you feel that you can’t fight it, you just go with it. When it comes to the arts, passion should always trump common sense. You aren’t just following dreams, you’re reaching for your destiny. You’re a dancer, a singer, a choreographer, a musician, a film maker, a writer, a photographer, a director, a producer, an actor, an artist. Yeah, you’re fucked!

The good news is that that’s not a bad place to start. Now that you’ve made your choice, or rather, succumbed to it, your path is clear. Not easy but clear. You have to keep working, it’s that simple. You got through TISCH, that’s a big deal, or to put it another way, you got through TISCH, big deal. Well it’s a start. On this day of triumphantly graduating a new door is opening for you. A door to a lifetime of rejection. It’s inevitable. It’s what graduates call the ‘the real world’. You’ll experience it auditioning for a part or a place in a company. It’ll happen to you when you’re looking for backers for a project. You’ll feel it when door close on you when you’re trying to get attention for something you have written, and when you’re looking for a directing or choreographing job.

How do you cope with it? I hear that valium and vicodin work! Nyah, I dunno. You can’t be too relaxed when you do what we do. And you don’t wanna block the pain too much. Without the pain, what would we talk about. I would make an exception to having a couple of drinks, if hypothetically, you had to speak to a couple of thousand graduates and their families at a commencement ceremony.

Rejection might sting, but my feeling is that it often has very little to do with you. When you’re auditioning or pitching the director or producer or investor might just have something or someone different in mind, that’s just how it is. That happened to me recently when I audtioned for the role of Martin Luther King in Selma. Which is too bad because I could have played the hell out of that part. I felt it was written for me. But the director had something different in mind. And you know, she was right. It seems the director is always right. Don’t get me wrong, David O’Yelowo was great. I don’t think I would have cast it great ..

I got two more stories, these really happened.

I read for Bang The Drum Slowly, seven times. The first two of the three times I read for the part of Henry Wiggins, the part eventually played by Michael Moriaty. I read for the director, I read for the producer, then they had me back to read for another part, the role of Bruce Pearson, I read for the director, I read for the producer, I read for the producer and his wife, I read for all of them together. It was almost like as long as I kept auditioning, they would have time to find somebody they liked more. I don’t know exactly what they were looking for, but I’m glad I was there when they didn’t find it.

Another time I was auditioning for a play, they kept having me back and I was pretty sure I had the part, and then they went with a name. I hated losing the job, but I understood. I could just as easily have lost the job to another no name actor, and I also would have understood. It’s just not personal. It can just mean nothing more than the director having another type in mind. You’ll get a lot of direction in your careers, some from directors, some from studio heads, some from money people, some from writers, although usually they’ll try to keep the writer at a distance. And some from your fellow artists. I love writers, by they way, I keep them on the set all the time.

Listen to all of it, and listen to yourself. I’m mostly going to talk about these ideas in movie actor terms, but this applies to all of you. You’ll find comparable situations in all the disciplines. The way the director gets to be right is that you help him or her be right. You may start out with different ideas, the director will have a vision, you will have ideas about your character. When you’re a young actor starting out, your ideas might not be trusted as much they will be later on in your career. You’ve been hired because the director saw something in your audition, your reading, in you that fit they’re concept. You may be given the opportunity to try it your way, but the final decision will be the director’s.

Later in your career when there’s a body of work to refer to, the may be more trust from the director but it’s pretty much the same thing. You may have more opportunities to try things your way, and you may think the director has agreed to your take, agreed your take is the best, but if it’s a movie, you’ll be nowhere near the editing room when the director makes the final decision. It’s best when you can work it out together.

As an actor, you always want to be true to your character and be true to yourself. But the bottom line is, you got the part. And that’s very important. As a director or a producer you also have to be true to yourself, and to the work. A film a dance a play, they are not tents where artists gets to play and express their individuality, they’re works of art that depend upon the contributions and collaboration of a group of artists. And it’s a big group, that includes production and costume designers, directors of photography, makeup and hair, stage managers, assistant directors, choreographers et cetera et et cetera many more I could name but I won’t now. Everyone plays an important part, an essential part. A director, producer, choreographer or company artistic director – these are powerful positions. But the power doesn’t come from the title. The power doesn’t come from the title, the power come from trust, respect, vision, work and again collaboration. You’ll probably be harder on yourself than any director. I’m not going to tell you to go easy on yourselves, I assume you didn’t pick this life because you thought it would be easy. You may have to answer to a director for a job but you also have to answer to yourself. This could create conflicts for you. You may want to play the role your way and the director has a different idea. Discuss it with the director, maybe there’s a compromise, there always should be the space to try to both ways. But don’t make ... don’t make a production ... but don’t make ... [pauses – smiles] but don’t make a production out of it because it’s not a democracy. On the set, or on the stage, somebody has to make the final decision. Someone has to pull it all together - that’s the director. So don’t be obdurate. Nobody’s going to see you do it in the ‘right way’ if you’re not on stage or in the movie.

I can answer the question that is on all of your minds right now. Yes, it’s too late to change your major to directing. While preparing for my role today, I asked a few TISCH students for directions for this speech. The first thing they said was keep it short. And they said it’s okay to give a bit of advice, it’s kind of expected and no one will mind. And then they said, to keep it short.

It’s difficult for me to come with advice for you who have already set upon your life’s work, but I can tell you some of the things I tell my own children. First, whatever you do, don’t go to TISCH School of the Arts. Get an accounting degree instead. Then I contradict myself, and as corny as it sounds, I tell them don’t be afraid to fail. I urge them to take chances, to keep an open mind, to welcome new experiences and new ideas. I tell them that if you don’t go, you’ll never know. You just have to be bold and go out there and take your chances. I tell them that if they go into the arts, I hope they find a nurturing and challenging community of like minded individuals, a place like TISCH. If they find themselves with the talent and the burning desire to be in the performing arts, I tell them when you collaborate, you try to make everything better but you’re not responsible for the entire project, only your part in it. You’ll find yourself in movies or plays or concerts or dance pieces that turn out in the eyes of critics and audiences to be bad, but that’s not on you, because you will put everything into everything that you do. You won’t judge the characters you play, and shouldn’t be distracted by judgments on the works you are in. Whether you are working for Ed Wood of Federico Fellini or Martin Scorsese, your commitment to your process will be the same.

By the way there will be times when your best is not enough. There can be many reasons for this, but as long as you give your best, it’ll be okay. Did you get straight As at school? If so, good for you, congratulations, but in the real world you’ll never get straight As again. There are ups and there are downs. And what I want to say to you today is that it’s okay. Instead of rocking caps and gowns today I can see all of you graduating today in custom TSOA T-shirts. On the back is printed, ‘Rejection - it isn’t personal’. And on the front - your motto, your mantra, your battle cry, ‘Next!’ You didn’t get that part, that’s my point, ‘Next’, you’ll get the next one, or the next one after that. You didn’t get that waiter’s job at the White Oak tavern, next! You’ll get the next one, or you’ll get the next gig tending bar at Joseph’s. You didn’t get into Juilliard? Next! You’ll get into Yale or TISCH. You guys like that joke, so it’s okay.

No, of course choosing TISCH is like choosing the arts. It isn’t your first choice, it’s your only choice. I didn’t attend TISCH or for that matter any college, or my senior year of high school, or most of my junior year ... still I’ve felt like part of the TISCH community for a long time. I grew up in the same neighborhood as TISCH. I’ve worked for a lot of people who have attended TISCH, including Marty Scorsese, Class of ’64. As you learn your craft together you come to trust each other and depend on each other. This encourages taking creative risks, because you all have the sense that you’re in it together. It’s no surprise that we often work with the same people over and over. I did eight pictures with Marty, and plan to do more. He did about twenty five with his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, whom he met at TISCH when she worked on his student film in the summer of ‘63. Other directors - Cassavetes, Fellini, Hitchcock, came back to the same collaborators over and over, almost like a repertoire company. And now David O Russell and Wes Anderson are continuing that tradition.

Treasure the associations and friendships and working relationships with the people in your classes in your early work. You never know what might come from them. There could be a major creative shift or a small detail that could make a major impression. In Taxi Driver, Marty and I wanted Travis Bickle to cut his hair into a mohawk. An important character detail, but I couldn’t do it because I needed long hair for The Last Tycoon that was starting right after Taxi Driver, and we knew a false Mohawk would look, well, false. So we were kicking it around one day at lunch and we decided to give it one shot with the very best makeup artist at the time, Dick Smith. If you saw the movie, you’ll know that it worked. And by the way, now you know it wasn’t real.

Friendships, good working relationships, collaboration, you just never know what’s going to happen when you get together with your creative friends. Marty Scorsese was here last year to speak to your 2014 graduates. And now here I am, here we are, on Friday, at a kind of super sized version of one of Alison’s student lounge hangout sessions. You're here to pause and celebrate your accomplishments so far, as you move on to a rich and challenging future. And me - I’m here to hand out my picture and resume to the directing and producing graduates.

I’m excited to be in a room of young creatives who make me hopeful about the future of the performing and media arts and I know you’re going to make it, all of you. Break a leg!

Next! Thank you.

Det siger retorikerne

Robert De Niros tale er vellykket mundtlig retorik, og det skyldes flere forskellige faktorer. Dels er De Niro meget imødekommende overfor publikum, idet han bruger enormt meget humor, der giver ham en jordnær karakter. Robert De Niro anerkender løbende de nyuddannede som værende en del af branchen ved at tale i anden person flertal ("we"), og blandt andet dét gør, at han styrker relationen mellem taler og publikum på en overbevisende måde. Derudover er hans mange anekdoter med til at skabe nærvær og indlevelse, samtidig med at de understreger hans erfaring og dermed styrker hans etos. Overordnet har talen en rød tråd, som bekræfter dimittenderne i, at deres valg er rigtigt, og at de aldrig må give op - uanset hvor hård, den branche de har valgt, vil vise sig at være.

  1. Robert De Niros overraskende indledning giver talen en humoristisk og ungdommelig drejning allerede fra start. Han slår allerede den uformelle tone an inden han begynder sin tale, idet han indleder med at pudse næse på talerstolen.
  2. Først ironiserer De Niro over den branche, publikum har valgt at uddanne sig ind i, men ender med at imødekomme dem og anerkende deres valg. De Niro er netop selv skuespiller og en del af føromtalte branche, og han har derfor en adkomst til at være så ironisk.
  3. Indledningen danner ramme om en morale: "I har valgt en usikker branche, fordi I ikke kunne lade være. Når passionen er stærk, skal man følge den."
  4. Her lægger han en dæmper på det "bekymrende" han indledte med: De nyuddannede er på rette vej.
  5. Her inviterer De Niro publikum ind i branchen, når han taler som værende på lige fod med sit publikum i kraft af formuleringen "... what we do.", hvilket styrker hans etos og skaber en identifikation mellem taler og publikum.
  6. Med Robert De Niros humoristiske stil fremstår han jordnær og imødekommende. Der kan være måske være fordomme til store skuespillere om, at de kan være arrogante eller lignende, men disse fordommemaner han til jorden med kommentarer som denne.
  7. Verdensstjernen De Niro taler her ind i de nyuddannedes virkelighed. Han taler til de tanker og bekymringer, der må fylde i takt med, at de skal ud og skaffe sig jobs.
  8. Robert De Niro er ironisk men bruger sin løgn som et eksempel på sin pointe om "Rejection might sting..."
  9. De Niro præsenterer her, hvad talen kommer til at indeholde; det kan vække nysgerrighed og skabe opmærksomhed hos publikum.
  10. Robert De Niro har selv været igennem den hårde tid, der nok venter mange af tilhørerne, og bruger implicit sin etos til at sige: "men se hvor jeg er den dag i dag"
  11. Endnu et eksempel på, hvordan Robert De Niros opbygger etos gennem talen: Han har arbejdet hårdt for at være der, hvor han er den dag i dag.
  12. De Niro bruger som her en del klichéer, der typisk ses og virker i amerikansk, patosladet retorik - men som i en dansk kontekst nemt kan blive for meget.
  13. Her bruger De Niro en stilfigur kaldet anafor, hvor han gentager den første del af sætningen, men med to forskellige udfald. Det gør talen lettere at huske for tilhørerne og er med til at give pågældende udsagn opmærksomhed.
  14. Han bruger her endnu en anafor, som skaber yderligere opmærksomhed omkring udsagnet.
  15. Her siger De Niro helt eksplicit, at han godt ved, hvilke tanker der rumsterer hos de nyuddannede, og at det netop er dem, han taler til. Men han får deres usikkerhed vent med humor i den efterfølgende passage om "directing".
  16. De Niro kører først og fremmest videre på rammen om talen: Den gennemgående joke om, at man uddanner sig til arbejdsløshed. Derefter 'omfavner' han de nyuddannede ved at give dem råd, som var de hans egne børn - råd om, at man bliver nødt til at kaste sig ud på det dybe vand. Han blåstempler så at sige deres uddannelsesvalg.
  17. Robert De Niro beretter om livserfaring, og han kan gøre det pga sin etos som ældre, erfaren og succesrig skuespiller, der taler til næste generation.
  18. Han opsummerer sine mange pointer om, at man ikke må give op, selvom det er en hård branche at begive sig ud i. Det gør han med "Next!", som symboliserer den kampånd, de nyuddannede skal have ved afslag - og efter afslag. Gentagelsen af "next" giver desuden et rytmisk præg.
  19. Her er det tydeligt, hvordan De Niro hylder de unge og deres valg. Dette er meget passende i forhold til genren.
  20. Yderligere etosopbygning ved hjælp af hans netværk: Han 'namedropper' flere store navne inden for branchen og omtaler Martin Scorsese som "Marty" - de er altså på - ikke bare fornavn - men kælenavn.
  21. De Niros mange anekdoter gør det nemt for publikum at leve sig ind i talen - det skaber nærvær.
  22. Endnu en gang anerkender De Niro de nyuddannede og tillægger dem betydning i branchen på lige fod med andre, han har arbejdet for eller med. Han gør det med humor, men udviser samtidig ydmyghed for den kommende generation. Det er samtidig begavet etosarbejde.
  23. "Next" bliver her talens catchphrase og opsummerer dét, de nyuddannede skal tage med sig videre: et mantra, der skal få dem tilbage på hesten efter afslag og et kampråb, der kan give dem styrke. En både humoristisk og effektfuld afslutning på talen.
  24. Allyson Greens er professor på TISCH.
  25. Robert De Niro slår en lidt uformel tone an allerede før han starter talen: han indleder med at pudse næse på talerstolen.
  26. Robert De Niro er ironisk, men bruger netop ironien til at understrege sin pointe om at "rejection might sting" - men man skal ikke lade sig slå ud.
  27. Ved at nævne store navne fra branchen, der også har gået på TISCH, kvalitetsstempler han de unges lidt usikre karrierevej: I har valgt en anerkendt skole, der uddanner store navne.

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