The Survival of Pantomimic Acting in Post-War German Cinema

Film historians commonly distinguish between pantomimic acting, which relies on the stance and movements of the body as a whole, from facially oriented acting, which is generally associated with closer framings. The facial style developed in tandem with the formulation of the continuity editing system. The basic assumption of that system is that a scene should be broken up into an establishing shot and a series of closer shots which guide the attention of the spectator effortlessly to the most salient portions of the space. To preserve clarity, the shots should be joined with matched action and screen direction.

In The Classical Hollywood Cinema, I have described how pantomimic acting dominated early filmmaking internationally and how Hollywood began its transition to the facial style during the period 1911-1913. At the time, the approach was explicitly referred to as “the American style.” Acting with the body never disappeared, of course. Actors learned to adjust the broadness of their gestures depending on whether they were framed in long shot or closeup. Slapstick comedy continued to depend more on pantomimic acting than most other genres did.

Most European national cinemas did not adopt this American system of staging and editing scenes until the 1920s. During the early 1910s, the best European directors became adept at staging intricate series of actions in different planes within a relatively deep setting. The best known exemplar of this style as it was used in Germany is Franz Hofer, whose main work appeared in the years just before Lubitsch began working exclusively in features.

Thus pantomimic acting continued to hold sway over most European film industries. Actors also tended to display exaggerated facial expressions, so as to be visible in medium-long or long-shot framings. Such acting was developed along different lines in Italy, Russia, and Sweden, where it became an important element in their rapidly developing national styles during the early to mid-1910s.

Why did a comparable development toward a distinctive national style not take place in Germany? Perhaps the high demand for new directors attracted recruits from the theatre, many of whom stuck with pantomimic acting.