s 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.

To the actor of the moving pictures, on the other hand, the temptation
offers itself to overcome the deficiency by a heightening of the
gestures and of the facial play, with the result that the emotional
expression becomes exaggerated. No friend of the photoplay can deny that
much of the photoart suffers from this almost unavoidable tendency. The
quick marchlike rhythm of the drama of the reel favors this artificial
overdoing, too. The rapid alternation of the scenes often seems to
demand a jumping from one emotional climax to another, or rather the
appearance of such extreme expressions where the content of the play
hardly suggests such heights and depths of emotion. The soft lights are
lost and the mental eye becomes adjusted to glaring flashes. This
undeniable defect is felt with the American actors still more than with
the European, especially with the French and Italian ones with whom
excited ges