ON ACTING: Real versus Fake

One time, the great director Bernardo Bertolucci issue a statement in defense against Norman Mailer's criticism that the sex in Bertolucci's movie "Last Tango in Paris" was fake as enacted by Marlon Brando and Romy Schneider (and therefore somewhat diminished in its artistic purity, or in its desirable ultimate experience): Bertolucci emphasized he was making a movie, and the first truth about making movies is that they are all fake. (By the way, Marlo Brando defended the fake or simulation of sex: "It was such a cold day that my penis shrank to the size of a peanut.")

Bertolucci is right...only I would add this: Everything in movies is fake but the actor's emotions. They must be really felt. Actors emotions are what gives all the other fake elements in movies their authenticity; or reality.