The face alone with its
tensions around the mouth, with its play of the eye, with its cast of
the forehead, and even with the motions of the nostrils and the setting
of the jaw, may bring numberless shades into the feeling tone. Here
again the close-up can strongly heighten the impression. It is at the
climax of emotion on the stage that the theatergoer likes to use his
opera glass in order not to overlook the subtle excitement of the lips
and the passion of the eyeballs and the ghastly pupil and the quivering
cheeks. The enlargement by the close-up on the screen brings this
emotional action of the face to sharpest relief. Or it may show us
enlarged a play of the hands in which anger and rage or tender love or
jealousy speak in unmistakable language. In humorous scenes even the
flirting of amorous feet may in the close-up tell the story of their
possessors' hearts. Nevertheless there are narrow limits. Many emotional
symptoms like blushing or growing pale would be lost in the mere
photographic rendering, and, above all, these and many other signs of
feeling are not under voluntary control. The photoactors may carefully
go through the movements and imitate the contractions and relaxations of
the muscles, and yet may be unable to produce those processes which are
most essential for the true life emotion, namely those in the glands,
blood vessels, and involuntary muscles.
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