thanks for all the pics!I agree.norma shearer´s expression does remind of a mask sometimes,her laughter seems unsincere and of course it´s easy to find the reasons in her own biography,but and that´s the huge but,she knew how to choose her roles.she knew exactly what suited her and how her weaknesses could be turned into advantages.if you just take a look at three of her most famous performances in the divorcee,marie Antoinette and the women,in which she played women ,whose characterization demanded to show a woman that is strong on the outside yet inside struggles with fears and even despair.her laughter HAD to be unsincere,because that´s what these roles demanded.in “the women” her husband betrays her and everybody knows about it.she is deeply wounded but doesn´t want to show it.it´s the charavter who is demanding a “mask”.i don´t even need to describe which kind of characterization marie Antoinette demanded,imo her best role.yet at the beginning of the 40´s when a totally new breed of actresses took over the screen,she seemed rather old-fashioned and in her last films she couldnt hide any longer how incredibly tired she,the actress and woman norma shearer was.it transcended her roles.
Yet one should also point out that the “mask”-impression,the impression of unsincerity wasn´t a shearer-specific thing.many critics said of joan Crawford,that she seemed to use a “dr.jekyll-mr.hyde” –like grimace to go from one emotion to the other.and if you watch her silent-films you see it´s true.but that´s also due to silent film-acting.not all actors ,but a lot of them overacted,exaggerated every emotion they wanted to convey.pantomime demands a different kind of acting and many actors couldn´t convey emotions without exaggerating them.the larger than life-emotions that they evoked can seem,especially nowadays,unsincere ,even ridiculous.some actors used the delsarte-method ,which slightly reminds me of the “commedia dell´arte”,only that in silent film acting these “masks” got changed several times during the film,regarding which emotion was demanded-- they“registered emotion”.there was a specific facial expression (or mask) for each emotion which the actor learned once and then used in every film.if the director yelled “sad” ,”angry” or whatever the actor had to use the face that was demanded.there´s a nice description of the delsarte-method in eve golden´s theda bara –biography.there are also pictures of theda registering emotions.theda´s performance in “a fool there was” has to be the most exaggerated one I´ve ever seen.unfortunately I cannot always tell what her face looks like,because the print I have is in extremely poor condition,but what I can see is hilarious enough
.there lie only 4-5 years between theda´s performance in “a fool” and Lillian gish´s performance in “broken blossoms” but acting-wise there are universes between them.Lillian gish´s talent was simply timeless.but there were many actors who used exaggerated acting-styles and therefore seemed theatrically unreal….Douglas Fairbanks sen for example.-I find him terribly annoying because of his swashbuckler-attitudes.they were and remained the same in every film I´ve seen him in.all he does is to throw himself from pose to pose.
Well,anyway,I forgot the initial intention of my post
:the mask –impression in norma shearer´s case can not only be explained with her life story but is also a question of different acting-methods.most silent film actors couldn´t make the transition to talkies not because of their voices but because they couldn´t adapt there acting styles to the new medium (or because the sutdion-bosses for one reason or another didn´t want them to succeed,but that´s another story).i may be biased but I think that norma sheaer gave some really good performances in the 30´s.her marie Antoinette,as sentimental as it might have been,really broke my heart.shearer was a pedantic perfectionist in real life and she was afraid throughout her life that she would end up in a mental insitution just like her sister.but what is so amazing about her is that she had an incredible strong will and strength,even though or because she was struggling with herself throughout her life and that´s what also shines through in all her performances.I think she used it the best way she could:she turned her weaknesses into strengths.I personally find that admirable .but in the end it´s a matter of personal preferences.
Excuse my long rant.i promise to be thread-abstinent for the next 2 months to compensate the damages that were caused
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edit:northernsky,just wanted to let you know that i appreciate your posts ,but i´m such a lazy karma-giver that i still have to spread some around before giving it to you again.i´m sorry
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