david bordwell on using faces in acting (the social network)
TRANSCRIPT
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 1/19
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 2/19
Foreground, background, playground
Film criticism : Always d eclining, n ever quite falling
Her design for living
Motion-capturing an Oscar
Light is a law
Kurosawa's early spring
Don't knock the blockbusters
(50) Days of summer (movies), Part 2
Has 3-D already failed?
Now leaving from p latform 1
Your tax dollars at work for Michael Bay
Class of 1960
Invasion of the Brainiacs II
La main droite de M. Hulot
Pierced by poetry
Take my film, please
Love isn't all you need
Niceties: how classical filmmaking can be at once
simple and precise
Slumdogged by the past
Grandmaster flashback
Bugs: The se cret history
Gradation of emph asis, starring Glenn Ford
Categorical coherence: A closer look at character
subjectivity
Title wave
Superheroes for sale
Games cinephiles play
American (Movie) Madness
In critical condition
A glimpse into the Pixar kitche n
Pausing and chortling: A tribute to Bob Clampe tt
Hands (and faces) across the table
A behe moth from the De ad Zone
Happy birthday, classical cinem a!Godard comes in many shapes and sizes
The m agic number 30, give or take 4
Is there a b log in this class?
Unsteadicam chronicles
Bergman, Antonioni, and the s tubborn s tylists
Watching m ovies very, very slowly
Fantasy franchises or franchise fantasies?
Live with it! There'll always be movie sequels.
Good thing, too.
New media and old stor tellin
The Classical Hollywood CinemaTwenty-FiveYears Along
Nordis k and theTableau
Aesthetic
WilliamCameronMenzies: OneForceful,Impressive Idea
Another ShawProduction:
Anamorphic Adventures inHong Kong
Paolo Gioli’sVertical Cinema
(Re)DiscoveringCharlesDekeukeleire
Doing FilmHistory
The Hook:SceneTransit ions in
ClassicalCinema
Anatomy of the Action Picture
Hearing Voices
Preface,Croatian edit ion,On the History of Film Style
Slavoj Žižek: Say Anything
Film and theHistorical Return
Studying Cine ma
DB here:
What do Jo hn Ford, Andy Warhol, and David Fincher have in common? Eyeball these
remarks.
Ford, asked what the audience should watch for in a movie: “Look at the eyes.”
Warhol: “The great stars are the ones who are doing something you can watch every
second, even if it’s just a movement inside their eye.”
Fincher, on the big club scene in The Social Network : “What’s cinematic are the
performances . . . . What their eyes are doing as they’re trying to grasp what the other
perso n is telling them.”
It isn’t just cinema that makes eyes important. Eyes are felt to be significant in
literature, from the highest to the lowest. In just a couple of pages of a pulp adventurestory you can read these sentences:
“Then it certainly does look very mysterious,” he said, but his blue e yes were
quiet and searching.
Chief Inspector Teal suddenly opened his baby- blue eyes and they were not
bored or c omatose or s tupid, but unexpectedly c lear and penetrating.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 3/19
Funny framings
Categories
3D
Actors
Actors: Fairbanks
Actors: Hart
Actors: Lloyd
Animation
Animation: Aardman
Animation: Pixar
Art cinema
Asian cinem a
B films
Books
Comic strips and cartoons
Directors: Anderson, Paul Thomas
Directors: Anderss on
Directors: Antonioni
Directors: Bahrani
Directors: Bauer
Directors: Benning
Directors: Bergman
Directors: Bong Joon-ho
Directors: Borzage
Directors: Capellani
Directors: Capra
Directors: Chaplin
Directors: Coens
Directors: Cronenbe rg
Directors: Demy
Directors: Disney
Directors: Dreyer
Directors: Eisenstein
Directors: Fei Mu
Directors: Fellini
Directors: Feuillade
Directors: Ford
Directors: Godard
Directors : G riffith
Directors: Guerin
Directors : Hawks
Directors: Hitchcock
What do quiet eyes look like, actually? Or searching ones: perhaps they’re moving a
bit? Bored o r comatose eyes might be droopy, so let’s c ount the eyelids as part of the
eye. But what could make eyes, by themselves, penetrating? Nonetheless, we think
we understand what such sentences mean.
Watching eyes is tremendously important in our social lives. We need to monitor other
people’s glances to see if they are looking at us. We need to track what else theymight be looking at. We need to watch for signals sent by the eyes, particularly
attitudes toward the situation we’re in. For example, we seldom look directly into
each others’ eyes, as characters in movies do constantly; in real life, “mutual gaze” is
intermittent and brief. But if two people s tare intently at each other, we’re likely to
assume keen attraction or rising aggression.
In an essay from Poetics of Cinema available on this site , I talk about mutual gaze in
cinema and how it can be exploited for dramatic purposes. The same essay takes up
the issue of blinking; we blink frequently, but film characters se ldom do, and the
actors usually make the blinks emotionally expressive (of fear, uncertainty, weakness,
etc.).
The problem is that eyes, by themselves, tell us very little about what the person
behind them is thinking or feeling. We can show this with a little experiment.
Do the eyes have it?
What do these e yes tell us?
Certainly they give us information–about the direction the person is looking, about a
certain state of alertness. The lids aren’t lifted to suggest surprise or fear, but I think
you’d agree that no s pecific emotion see ms to emerge f rom the eyes alone.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 4/19
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 5/19
Directors: von Trier
Directors : Wee rase thakul
Directors : Welles
Directors : Wong Kar-wai
Directors : Woo
Directors : Wyler
Documentary film
DVDs
Experime ntal film
Fans and fandom
Festivals
Festivals: Cinédécouvertes
Fes tivals: Cinem a Ritrovato
Festivals: Ebertfest
Festivals: Hong Kong
Fes tivals: Vancouve r
Festivals: Wisconsin
Film and othe r med ia
Film archives
FILM ART (th e boo k)
Film comm ents
Film criticism
Film genres
Film history
Film industry
Film piracy
Film scholarship
Film technique
Film technique: Cinematography
Film technique: Editing
Film technique: Music
Film technique: Pe rformance
Film technique : Sound
Film technique: Staging
Film technique : Widescree n
Film theory
Film theo ry: Cognitivism
Global film industry
Hollywood: Artistic traditions
Hollywood: The business
Independe nt American film
you wanted to show someone being blindsided, this is a pretty precise way to do it.
Of c ourse context helps us a lot. Eduardo Savarin has just been gulled by his partner
Mark Zuckerberg and by the interloper Sean Parker. His stock in the company that he
co-founded is now worthless. So the situation informs our reading of Eduardo’s
expression, and this permits the actor to underplay. Actor Andrew Garfield do esn’t
give us bug-eyed surprise or frowning bafflement; he relies on our understanding of
what he must be fee ling (what we would feel) in order to refine and nuance hisexpression. When an actor underacts, we’re often expected to fill in the emotions we
could plausibly imagine him to be feeling, on the basis of the story at this point. In
isolation, the e xpress ion might be vague or ambiguous; the narrative situation helps
sharpen it.
Back to the main question: How informative are the eyes alone? Try this one.
Again, I’ve tipped the shot a little to conceal the brows. Not much evident from the
bare eyes, is there? Again, a certain focus and interest, but that’s about it. No marked
surprise or fear or sadness .
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 6/19
Movie theatres
Narrative strategie s
Narrative: Suspense
National cinem as: Central America
National cinemas: China
National cinemas: Denmark
National cinemas: Eastern Europe
National cinemas: France
National cinemas: Germany
National cinemas: Hong Kong
National cinem as: India
National cinem as: Iran
National cine mas: Italy
National cinem as: Japan
National cinem as: Mexico
National cinemas: Middle East
National cinem as: New Zealand
National cinemas: Philippines
National cinem as: Russia and USSR
National cinemas: South America
National cinemas: South Korea
National cinemas: Spain and Portugal
National cinemas: Sweden
National cine mas: Taiwan
National cinemas: Thailand
National cinemas: Turkey
National cinem as: UK
New media: Technology
People we like
PLANET HONG KONG: backstories and sidestories
Poetics of cinema
Readers' Favorite Entries
Screenwriting
Silen t film
Special effects and CGI
The Frodo Franchise
UW Film Studie s
Go Back In Time
January 2011
Something has been added. The brows aren’t lifted in surprise or fear or sadness or
distress ; they seem to be relaxed. The angle o f the look sugge sts concentration, but
we’re not getting as much information as we got from Eduardo’s brows. We need a
mouth.
The impression of concentration is greater, and I think we’d ag ree that this small smile
of satisfaction gives us some insight into what the character is feeling. Again, the eyes
tell only part of the story.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 7/19
December 2010
Novembe r 20 10
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
Novembe r 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2 009February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
Novembe r 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2 008February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
Novembe r 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
And again context matters. Mark Zuckerberg has just figured out that he can enhance
The Facebook by adding users’ information about their romantic relationships. The
tight, sidelong smile confirms not only his genius but also his view that college is
partly about getting laid.
Less with the eye brows
At this point you might be getting impatient with me. Isn’t this all obvious? Of course
the actors use their faces–they’re paid to do that. But sometimes going obvious can
get us to notice things. For one thing, the eyes in themselves aren’t that emotionally
informative. Pupil dilation can convey physical arousal, but that’s another s tory for
another time. More commonly, the eyes give us the all-important information about
what the person is looking at. The lids convey alertness, or drowsiness, or if they’re
pinched a bit, concentration or anger.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 8/19
May 2007
April 2007
March 2 007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
Novembe r 2006
October 2006
September 2006
also visit:
100 Online sources for film archives
Animation World
Arts & Letters Daily
Ben Goldsm ith’s IScree n Studies
Butterflies and Wheels
Chicago Reader on Film
Christian Hayes’Classic Film Show
Cinemawriter (Jay Antani)
Cinemetrics
Cinephobia
Cognitive Daily on cinemaContinuity Boy
Critic after Dark: Noel Vera
DaveKehr.com
David Poland: The Hot Blog
Denis Dutton
Film Fe stival World
Film Studies for Free
Filmmaker Magazine
FredCamper.com
Gary Giddins’website
girishshambu.com
Glenn Kenny's Some Came RunningGreenb riar Picture Shows
greencine.com
Harry Tuttle at Scre enville
r r r h
Sometimes the eyes give us all the information we get. Here is Mark just before he
agrees to take the job coding for the Winklevoss brothers’ project, The Harvard
Connection. He moves from alertness to calculation by narrowing his eyes. As the
phrase goes, you can hear the wheels turning.
Crucial to this moment is that nothing but Mark’s eyes and lids move; he doesn’t even
turn his head. At the film’s climax, he will open up a little bit, and the eyelids play a
central part. Getting the news that the Fac ebook party has been busted, Mark starts to breathe more laboriously, then wobbles his head slightly and closes his eyes. For
once his concentration is broken.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 9/19
il i
Harvey De ne roff’s s ite
Henry Jenkins’Blog
Hong Kong Hustle
Ivo Blom on film and painting
Jeff Go lds mith CREATIVE SCREENWRITING blo g
and podcast
Jim Emerson’s Scanners
JJ Murphy on independ ent cinema
Jonathan Rosen baum
JustTVLars von Tr ier dis cuss es ANTICHRIST
Mark Schilling on Japanese film
Mellart (Marco Milone )
Mellydo ll’s Archive Blog
Michael Barrier on animation
Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese
Film
Mike Grost’s Classic Film and Television
More than Meets the Mogwai
Movie City News
Nick Redfern on empirical film research
Only the cinem a
Oswald Iten on color in animation
Parallax View: Sean Axmaker & co.
Peet Gelde rblom: Directorama
Reid Rosefelt: My Life as a Blog
RogerEbert.com
Self-Styled siren
TCM Movie Morlocks
The Bioscope
The Golden Rock on Asian movies and p opular
culture
Timeline: Visual Effects, Computer Graphics,
Computer Animation
VFX World
Virginia Wright Wexman on en joying film festivals
Yvonne Teh
Zigzigger: On the Audiovisual and Beyond
It’s about as c lose as Mark comes to a canonical expression of sadness.
Obvious as it seems, by isolating the eyes we can notice the division of labor among
eyes, eyelids, brows, and mouth: Each component supplies a bit of information. We’re
remarkably skillful in integrating all these cues. What researchers into face perception
call the informational triangle–the two eye regions tapering down to the mouth
–creates a package of social and psychological signals. It’s this whole ensemble, the
most informative parts of the face working together, that guides us in making sense of other people, or of film acting.
I’ve c ome to e spec ially appreciate e yebrows. Daniel McNeill, in The Face: A
Natural History, writes:
The eye brow is the great supporting player of the face, and its work generally
escapes notice . It helps signal anger, surprise, amusement, fear, helplessness,
attention, and many other messages we grasp almost at once. Indeed, without
eyebrows the surprise e xpression almost disappears. The eyebrows are s uch
active little flagmen of mind-state it’s amazing anyone can wonder about their
purpose. We use them incessantly (p. 199).
Since eyebrows are so important, acto rs must control them carefully. In the film’s f irst
scene, Erica Albright moves her eyebrows vivaciously (and widens her eyelids too),
but Mark’s brows are rigid and knit together.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 10/19
Planet Hong Kong
Second edition, 2011.299 pages, 11 × 8.5 inches, 441 co lor
illustrations
Film Art: An Introductio n
Textbook written in collaboration withKristin Thompson. Ninth edition, New
York: McGraw-Hill, 2009 .Go to McGraw-Hill’s extensive online
information ce nter for the boo k, including a
sample chapter .
[go to Amazon]
The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of
the Rings and Mode rn Hollywood
by Kristin Thompso n. Berkeley:University of California Press , 2007 .400 p ages, 6 × 9 inches, 12 color illustrations;
ill i
This scene introduces us to Mark’s facial behavior. He will glance to the side when
he’s pressed, but he’ll focus sharply on the other person when he’s trying to do minate
the c onversation. His mouth seems to be do minated by the triangularis and mentalis
muscles, creating the inverted smile sometimes called the “facial shrug,” even when
the lips are relaxed. Erica smiles a lot, something that usually triggers a responding
smile. But not from this guy, though a smirk will occasionally flit over his mouth when
he says something insulting. The closest we get to a true smile, I think, is at the
blowout conclusion of the contes t for internships, and that’s seen in the f airly distant
long shot at the top of this section.
Above those eyes and that mouth sit those hooded brows, almost never lifting or
lowering. Which is to say that Mark seldom shows surprise , and his anger will usually
be vis ible in the s et o f his mouth (and in his words.) His flatlined brows sometimes
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 11/19
36 b /w illustrations.
[go to Amazon]
cover of Penguin Books’ (NZ) edition of Th eFrodo Franchise . The tiny subtitle read s: “How‘The Lord of the Rings’ became a Hollywoodblo ckbuster and put New Zealand on the map.”
Poetics of Cinema
by David Bordwell. Routledge, 2007.512 pages , 7 × 10 inches. I llustrations.
[go to Amazon]
Log in
suggest keen concentration, sometimes aloofness when he tilts his head back, or more
pervasively the s ense that everything in the vicinity is irritating. He seems to be
permanently scowling, an effect that Fincher and DP Jeff Cronenweth accentuate by
lighting that draws his brows closer together and hollows out the eye sockets.
How different this performance is from the ac tor Jes se Eisenberg’s everyday facial
configuration (or at least the one he employs to send us other signals) can be seen in
the making-of documentary acc ompanying The Social Network on DVD. One examplesurmounts this entry and shows a much different set of expressive cues–raised
eyebrows , wider eyes , more cheerful mouth. The actor’s face is very mobile; he can
even turn in the inner c orners of his brows, which is hard to do voluntarily.
In one section of the making-of, Jesse reports that Fincher was often telling him,
“Less with the eyebrows ,” and onscreen Eisenberg de livered. By the e nd, for the last
shots of Mark alone, Fincher asked for what’s become famous as the Queen Christina
effect–an expression that could be read in many ways. “I want everybody to put
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 12/19
anything o n it.”
The result is a portrait of Generation Whatever, or an image of stoic loneliness, or of
bemused curiosity about an old g irlfriend, or. . . .
One more consequence of my noting the obvious: The centrality of faces to modern
movies. Today’s films use close-ups very heavily, probably more than at any other
point in film history. (The Way Hollywood Tells It explores some reasons why.) WhatI’ve called the “intensified c ontinuity” s tyle of modern cinema relies on tight single
shots of individual players. So modern players must be maestros of their facial
muscles and eye movements. In other styles of filmmaking, currently and historically,
the actor’s perfo rmance is projected onto more body parts through gestures, stance,
gait, and the like. Recall Cary Grant, who performed with his whole body. Of course
he wasn’t bad in close-ups either.
Faces aren’t eve rything in movies like The Social Network . Most characters use their
arms and hands freely–probably the Winklevi the most. Mark is straightjacketed, buteven he will gesture sometimes, as when a drooping Twizzler becomes his hand
prop. He usually prefers a shrug, though it’s executed without the eyebrow lift most
people add. Postures and personal walking styles play key roles in the film as well.
Still, as in mos t movies today, here e yes and brows and mouths are the main channels
of emotional information. Fincher again: “It was really a movie about kids’ faces.”
And even films from the 1910s, made before directors used a lot of cutting, often
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 13/19
used long-shot staging to direct attention to the body’s most informative zones. A
1913 book on film acting noted, “Facial expression is perhaps the most important part
of photoplaying. . . . After all is said and done the eyes are really the focus of one’s
perso nality in photoplaying.”
Facebook facework
I can’t offer a complete account of nonverbal behavior in The Social Network here, but I want to end with a hypothesis that would be worth more detailed inquiry. The
film’s ce ntral relationship is that between über-nerd Mark and Ec on-major Eduardo,
the c oder and the as piring tycoon (although he also supplies Mark with a crucial
algorithm). Through facewo rk, Fincher and his actors delineate the contrasting
perso nalities and trace their shifting dynamic.
From the start, we get Mark’s stare of frowning concentration, drawing on the muscle
called the corrugator, Darwin’s “muscle of difficulty.” By contrast, Andrew Garfield’s
perfo rmance is marked by a look of worry and abashment. He’s often kinking hiseyebrows , furrowing his brow, and ducking his head. Fincher motivates this behavior
by having him often stoop over Mark’s workstation, tilt his head downward, and lift
his e yes from underneath his brow.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 14/19
In this shot/ reverse-shot pass age , Mark’s mask never slips but Eduardo, wrinkling his
brow and tipping his chin down a bit, looks apologetic.
Even when Eduardo has eve ry right to berate Mark, he looks like he’s the one in the
wrong. Instead of displaying the jammed-down, pinched-together brows of an angry
man, he won’t lose his patient, s lightly anxious look.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 15/19
See the last image on this entry for a moment when Eduardo seems on the verge of
tears–and this is after he’s gotten an invitation to join two alluring women.
You can argue that the blindsided expression we dissected earlier is one culmination
of the facial cues that Andrew Garfield has been blending in the course of the film.
But things are more complicated. The plot gives us two forward-moving timelines,
one in the past tracing the rise of Facebook, the other in the present, during which
Mark is deposed in two lawsuits. At an early deposition, Mark’s implacable s tareworks to make Eduardo revert to his old obeisance.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 16/19
But in a climactic face -off, we come to see a diffe rent Eduardo.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 17/19
Eduardo’s quiet testimony about whether anyone’s share but his was diluted (“It
wasn’t”) affects Mark more deeply than the bluster of the Winklevoss brothers. The
words are delivered without the usual sidelong glance, kinked eyebrows, or head
ducking that has defined Eduardo earlier. His brow is smooth, his brows level. This is
man to man, and it’s Mark who breaks o ff eye contact.
You co uld nuance this transformation by tracing it scene by scene, and contrasting it
with the body language displayed by other characters. For today I simply wanted to
sketch the broad development that I think is at work in this core relationship. Thedrama of domination and betrayal is played out in eyes , eyebrows , mouths, mutual
gazes , and the like as much as it is in the dialogue and incidents.
There is no art, Hamlet says, to read the mind’s construction in the face. He’s right
about the reading part; we grasp expressions fast, intuitively, and often reliably. But
there is art in the performer’s construction of the face, and of the director’s cinematic
shaping of it.
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 18/19
John Ford’s remark about looking at the eyes is quoted in Joseph McBride’s
Searching for John Ford (Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 2010), p.2; the
Warhol quotation comes from Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol
’60s (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), p. 109; quotations f rom David Fincher come
from the bonus features on the collector’s edition DVD of The Social Network . My
quotations about eyes in fiction are drawn from Leslie Charteris, Prelude for War
(New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1938), pp. 171, 173. The 1913 quotation about eyes
comes from Francis Agnew’s Motion Picture Acting (Syracuse: Reliance Newspaper
Syndicate), p. 40; I learned of it from Janet Staiger’s article, “‘The Eyes Are Really
the Focus’: Photoplay Acting and Film Form and Style,” Wide Angle 6, 4 (1985), pp.
14-23.
Ed Tan offers a very good analysis of the issues I mention here in his article “Three
Views of Facial Expression and Its Understanding in the Cinema,” in Moving Image
Theory: Ecological Considerations, ed. Joseph D. Anderson and Barbara Fisher
Anderso n (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press , 2005), pp. 107-127. I find
Vicki Bruce and Andy Young’s In the Eye of the Beholder: The Science of Face
Perception (Oxford University Press, 1998) a very helpful guide to ideas in this
research area. The “facial shrug” is described in Gary Faigin’s excellent The Artist’s
Complete Guide to Facial Expression (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1990), pp. 104-105.
There’s a fascinating debate in the human sciences about whether particular aspects of
nonverbal communication are constant across cultures. Ges tures vary considerably, but
are facial express ions universal to some degree? Or do they differ from culture to
culture? Are they primarily expressions of the person’s emotion, or are they signals
which have developed, through evolution or cultural convention, to influence others?
You can read more about these and other issues in Paul Ekman and Wallace V.
Friesen, Unmasking the Face (Cambridge, MA: Maor Books, 2003) and Alan J.
Fridlund, Human Facial Expression: An Evolutionary View (San Diego : Academic
Press , 1994). The c lassic account is by Darwin, whose 1872 book Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals is available in an edition in which Ekman includes an
PDFmyURL.com
8/7/2019 David Bordwell on Using Faces in Acting (The Social Network)
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/david-bordwell-on-using-faces-in-acting-the-social-network 19/19
afterword explaining the development of this research tradition.
Up to the minute, more or less: Contemporary research on smiling and eye contact .
Last Modified: Monda y | Janua ry 31, 2011 @ 17:32 open pr in tab le vers ion
This entry was posted on Sunday | January 30, 2011 at 8:41 pm and is fi led under Actors , F i lm techn ique, F i lm
technique: Cinematography, F i lm techn ique: Performance , F i lm theory : Cogn i tiv ism , Hollywood: Artistic traditions .
Responses are current ly c losed, but you can trackback from your own s i te .
Comments are c losed.
comments about the s ta te o f th is webs i te go to Meg Hamel.
hos ted by www.topped-with-meat.com
PDFmyURL.com