No doubt, an emotion which is deprived of its discharge by words has lost a strong element, and yet gestures, actions, and facial play are so interwoven with the psychical process of an intense emotion that every shade can find its characteristic delivery.  The face alone with its tensions around the mouth, with its play of the eye, with its cast of the forehead, and even with the motions of the nostrils and the setting of the jaw, may bring numberless shades into the feeling tone.  Here again the close-up can strongly heighten the impression.  It is at the climax of emotion on the stage that the theatergoer likes to use his opera glass in order not to overlook the subtle excitement of the lips and the passion of the eyeballs and the ghastly pupil and the quivering cheeks.  The enlargement by the close-up on the screen brings this emotional action of the face to sharpest relief.  Or it may show us enlarged a play of the hands in which anger and rage or tender love or jealousy speak in unmistakable language.  In humorous scenes even the flirting of amorous feet may in the close-up tell the story of their possessors’ hearts.  Nevertheless there are narrow limits.  Many emotional symptoms like blushing or growing pale would be lost in the mere photographic rendering, and, above all, these and many other signs of feeling are not under voluntary control.  The photoactors may carefully go through the movements and imitate the contractions and relaxations of the muscles, and yet may be unable to produce those processes which are most essential for the true life emotion, namely those in the glands, blood vessels, and involuntary muscles.

Certainly the going through the motions will shade consciousness sufficiently so that some of these involuntary and instinctive responses may set in.  The actor really experiences something of the inner excitement which he imitates and with the excitement the automatic reactions appear.  Yet only a few can actually shed tears, however much they move the muscles of the face into the semblance of crying.  The pupil of the eye is somewhat more obedient, as the involuntary muscles of the iris respond to the cue which a strong imagination can give, and the mimic presentation of terror or astonishment or hatred may actually lead to the enlargement or contraction of the pupil, which the close-up may show.  Yet there remains too much which mere art cannot render and which life alone produces, because the consciousness of the unreality of the situation works as a psychological inhibition on the automatic instinctive responses.  The actor may artificially tremble, or breathe heavily, but the strong pulsation of the carotid artery or the moistness of the skin from perspiration will not come with an imitated emotion.  Of course, that is true of the actor on the stage, too.  But the content of the words and the modulation of the voice can help so much that the shortcomings of the visual impression are forgotten.