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CHANGESINTASTE 77
nomics' greatly simplified the acting of film actors. Both gestures and play of features had to be toned down in comparison with the technique of the live stage. This is one of the reasons why the acting style of very old films now appears exaggerated and ridiculous. The microscopic close-up is an inexorable censor of 'naturalness' of expression; it immediately shows up the difference between spontaneous reaction and deliberate, unnatural, forced gesture. Only nature moves naturally, even in human beings, and only the unconscious reflex-like reactions of the soul impress the onlooker as natural gestures.
Even the best film actors are told by the director when a close-up is about to be made: 'Do what you like as long as you don't "act". Don't do anything at all, just feel and imagine the situation you are in and what then appears in the face of its own accord as it were and flexes the muscles in gesture is enough.' The close-up puts emphasis on the most delicate nuances.
We cannot use glycerine tears in a close-up. What makes a deep impression is not a fat, oily tear rolling down a face — what moves us is to see the glance growing misty, and moisture gathering in the corner of the eye — moisture that as yet is scarcely a tear. This is moving, because this cannot be faked.
CHANGES IN TASTE
The simplification of acting brought about by the close-up changed more than the style of acting. There was also a change in taste accompanying the change of trend which substituted a neo-naturalistic tendency for the neo-romanticism of Rostand and Maeterlinck on the western European stage. After the first world war and the hysterical emotional fantasies of expressionism, a 'documentary', dry, anti-romantic and antiemotional style was the fashion in the film as in the other arts.
The simplified acting demanded by the close-up conformed to the new taste for the objective and unromantic and this circumstance did much to popularize the American style of acting in Europe.