From the editor and writers of Bright Lights Film Journal
Action! Interviews with Directors from Classical Hollywood to
Contemporary Iran David Hudson, IFC.com Dana Andrews The Forties
Hero and His Shadow "It's not difficult for me to hide emotion,
since I've always hidden it in my personal life." ~ Dana Andrews
The first actors wore masks. In Greek drama they were used to
project emotion, but a mask-like face of flesh and blood, not
linen and clay, has other uses in acting. Style is a matter of
what you leave out. Actors, like the rest of us, can have many
reasons for not wanting to give too much away. Some movie stars
who appreciated how much the camera magnifies facial expressions
developed a minimalism that went beyond naturalism; everything
happened behind their eyes. But the mask was more than a
cinematic strategy; it expressed a particular mode of being: a
mode of reticence, stoicism, secrecy. An immobile face was as
necessary to the movie tough guy as his fedora and his gun. Dana
Andrews was one of Ho