No, no, not silent movie acting (who do I look like, David Kalat?*), acting without words. Those moments in performances when an actor does more, much more, with a look or a reaction than they could ever do with a line. There have been many great all silent performances, too, where an actor like Holly Hunter might play a role, like her Oscar winning performance in The Piano, without dialogue, or like Spencer Tracy in today’s airing on TCM of The Old Man and the Sea, but what I’m talking about here are the moments within an otherwise normal, sound film, dialogue filled performance that stand out, where the actor took command of the screen without taking command of a single word.
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Although Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) is referring to silent movies when she laments the fact that, once upon a time, “we had faces,” meaning “we didn’t need a bunch of words to act,” it still stands in for any moment an actor needs to use whatever they’ve got inside to make the scene work because all the script says is, “look sad.” One quick, easy example for me comes in a movie I’m not even that wild about (but if you read me regularly, you should know by now that me not liking a movie never stops me from finding good things in it, even favorite scenes) but still contains some great silent acting. It’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and the silent acting comes from Katharine Hepburn who gives a performance that relies on reaction shots to Spencer Tracy more than half the time. She won an Oscar for it and I think it’s precisely because of these reaction shots that she did. Her biggest moment comes at the end when Tracy gives his great speech on the hardships his daughter and soon to be son-in-law will face in the world and Hepburn looks on, filled with emotion, choking back tears (like most of the audience). Some say she was reacting to the gut feeling that this would be the last time she would ever watch Spencer act and that’s understandable, too. But still, drawing on that kind of emotion is precisely what a great actor does and what a lesser actor constantly muffs. Hepburn pulls it off and it’s a great moment in the annals of silent acting.
In 1976, Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver gave what I still consider to be one of his finest performances and a lot of that comes from the fact that so much of it is silent. Hell, much of it is just his eyes in the rear view mirror. Firstly, the film is narrated which places most of the important lines over the action rather than in it. Secondly, most of the talking comes from people in his taxicab, including a crazy customer played my Martin Scorsese, in which De Niro can only visually react. Thirdly, the entire climax, including De Niro’s haunting gaze as the police enter the room after the shootout and his distant but creepy stare as Cybil Sheppard gets into his cab at the end, is done almost without a word coming from De Niro. It’s another great silent performance.
Those are just two that immediately come to mind for performances that rely heavily on silent moments and reaction shots but there are so many performances in movies that have great silent moments regardless of how much dialogue is contained throughout.
Ingrid Bergman in just about anything but two in particular, Casablanca and Gaslight. In Casablanca, as Rick gives his final speech to her on the tarmac, she gives one of the greatest performances of her career and maybe in the history of the movies, in just that one moment. And in Gaslight, that amazing face of hers goes to work again as her fear of her own insanity is drawn across her eyes more clearly with each passing scene.
Joseph Cotten, in Citizen Kane, as Kane fires him without even looking his way or in The Third Man as he listens to Harry vaguely threaten his life by pointing out the dots (people) down below and insinuating that Cotten could be the next one.
Tony Perkins, as the camera pulls in tightly on his face while he painfully listens to Detective Arbogast pick his story apart in Psycho.
Greta Garbo, staring into the distance and the rest of her life, at the end of Queen Christina.
Jimmy Stewart, in It’s a Wonderful Life, when he first sees Pottersville.
Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein, a practically all silent performance, except for a well placed hiss and scream, that is a delight of reaction shots.
Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind because, well, that final scene. I mean, if you know the scene I’m talking about, you know it couldn’t have been easy to pull off, at least not without laughing. She deserved the Oscar for that alone.
Robert Mitchum in anything. Really, one of the best, if not the best, silent actors of all time.
James Mason in Georgy Girl. His facial contortions are wonderful throughout but when he forces those smiles through confusion and befuddlement at the end of the movie, as he and his new bride, with baby in tow, get into the car, it’s simply priceless.
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Burgess Meredith in Rocky. Meredith is an actor that I think should have won an Oscar for practically every performance he ever gave but the best part of his performance here, which is known for the yelling parts mainly, is when he silently, and dejectedly, leaves Rocky’s apartment while Rocky screams about how he’s being exploited and how he doesn’t owe Mickey anything. Stallone’s making all the noise, but Meredith is stealing every second of the scene just by the way he carries himself.
Hattie McDaniel in Alice Adams, standing around the table and listening to the Adams family fill the air with the pungent aroma of B.S. as they host Alice’s rich date for dinner.
Barbara Stanwyck throughout Stella Dallas but particularly on the train as she listens to the girls belittle her, knowing her own daughter is hearing it, too.
Barbara Bates in All About Eve, holding Eve’s award in front of those mirrors at the end and pulling it off like a pro.
And, well, about a million more. I’ll leave it up to you to cover all the great moments I’ve left out. Don’t be silent, speak up!
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*interestingly, David put up a piece about the movie Silent Running just yesterday as I was working on this piece, leading, quite inadvertently, to two “silent” titled posts in a row.