The soul of the moving picture (1924)

68 The Soul of the Moving Picture the caution that is being exercised in attaining it. One has to study the player's unconscious movements; the mirthful action of his hand; the sensuous expression of his eye; his gait; his manner of sitting down. The whole man is sometimes revealed by the way in which he smokes a cigarette. One must make the actor angry and nervous. Each expression of impatience, of joy, of tedium that is characteristic of a given man must be noted down in the film book. One has got to make a portrait of the man who is going to play the part the author has in mind. He must be depicted, in my film book, just as he stands before me, just as he acts — and reacts— toward the producer, the director, and toward the poor people who make up the crew of supernumeraries. I have got to have the man, and not his mask, if I am going to succeed with him on the screen. The poetic play associated with this type of acquired information and insight is at once singular and fascinating. We lift a human flower up out of its original soil with its tender roots and transplant it to a new clime and a new earth. There it finds itself again, safe and carefully guarded : it smiles, and develops its flowers. It is only in this way that the characters grow from their own power. Made to grow in this fashion, they reveal in their every movement, as