S&S
By the turn of hte twentieth century, moves were emerging as the quintessential modern medium. with flickering light, they were revealing an unprecedented capacity to speak, in silence, to the human psyche… Mirroring the unconscious working of mentall life, the eloquence of film was capable of evoking a deep emotional response while bypassing the filter of critical reason.
Within this medium, the stereotyping process and the elaboration of formulas for making audiences identify with certain characters, and project their deepest anxieties onto other, was being refined and standardized as never before. unlike thatrical directors, who relied on the talents of trained actors, early movemakers often selected “character actors” on the basis of pure physical appearance, scouring the streets for easily identifiable social types.
if the photoplay needs a brutal boxer in a mining camp, the producer will not.. try to transform a clean, neat, professional actor into a vulgar brute, but he will sift the bowery until he has found some creature who looks as if he came from tha mining camp and who has at least ethe prize fighter’s cauliflower ear… if he needs the fat bartender with his smug smile, or the humble jewish peddler, or the italian organ grinder, he does not rely on wigs and paint; he finds them all readymade on the east Side.
