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76 THEFACEOFMAN
the early silent film. His speciality was an iron immobility of feature and his feelings and passions did not show in his face. His acting was notable for his restraint, his failure to act. How then did he nevertheless express his emotions so intelligibly that we understood what was going on in the film and were interested in the fate of the character he played?
Once he acted this scene: he is captured by robbers and bound, then unexpectedly confronted with his wife whom he had believed in safety and who is now also a captive. He must not betray the fact that he knows this woman — his Ufa and hers depend on concealing this. The bandits have him covered with their guns and watch his face intently. A movement of a muscle, the slightest hint of any love, tenderness, anxiety, surprise or fear, any indication of what is going on inside him, would betray them both and be their death. But Hayakawa's hard Japanese face is a mask of stone. Nothing shows in his indifferent face of what we know is ravaging his heart. He looks into his wife's frightened eyes with a hard look and we are convinced that the bandits believe him when he says that he does not know this woman.
Nevertheless we can see something in his eye. Not really something, for we could not say what it is. But we can see that there is something there that we cannot see. We can read between the lines of the petrified features — not only excitement and a deep affection, but a consoling encouragement that tells the wife's frightened, fixed stare : 'Speak not, move not, know me not. Fear not, all will be well!' It is the 'microphysiognomies' of the close-up that have given us this subtlest play of features, almost imperceptible and yet so convincing. The invisible face behind the visible had made its appearance, the invisible face visible only to the one person to whom it addresses itself — and to the audience.
SIMPLIFIED ACTING
In films in which a slight movement can express a deep passion and the tragedy of a soul can manifest itself in the twitching of an eyebrow, broad gesturing and grimacing become unbearable. The technique and style of 'microphysiog