Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art) (1952)

THE SECOND FACE 83 know who they are? The title does not tell us. It is written in their faces, unmistakably showing their class and showing it immanently in individual physiognomies; showing not man in his social class, but social class in men. When, after this scene, fighting breaks out in the streets, it is not only machineguns and bayonets that are engaged in battle, but live human faces as well. OUR UNKNOWN FACES The human face is not yet completely discovered — there are still many white patches on its map. One of the tasks of the film is to show us, by means of 'microphysiognomics', how much of what is in our faces is our own and how much of it is the common property of our family, nation or class. It can show how the individual trait merges with the general, until they are inseparably united and form as it were nuances of one another. Written psychology has often attempted to find by analysis the dividing line between the individual and the general. The 'microphysiognomics' of the film can differentiate more subtly and accurately than the most exact of words and hence it acquires, beside the artistic significance, an important scientific function, supplying invaluable material to anthropology and psychology. THE SECOND FACE In the mingling of the individual and racial character two expressions are superimposed on each other like translucent masks. For instance, we often see a degenerate specimen of an ancient, long-civilized, refined race. The anatomy of an English aristocrat's face may bear a noble, handsome expression, the physiognomy of an ancient racial culture. But the close-up may show concealed beneath it the coarse and depraved expression of a base individual. Or the film may show the inverse variant: the soulful, beautiful physiognomy hiding between the typically coarse and ugly features of an uncultured race. 'Microphysiognomics' can show, behind the faces we can