"There is a film in which Asta Nielsen is looking out of the window and sees someone coming. A mortal fear, a petrified horror, appears on her face. But she gradually realizes that she is mistaken and that the man who is approaching, far from spelling disaster, is the answer to her prayers. The expression of horror on her face is gradually modulated through the entire scale of feelings from hesitant doubt, anxious hope and cautious joy, right through to exultant happiness. We watch her face in closeup for some twenty metres of film. We see every hint of expression around her eyes and mouth and watch them relax one by one and slowly change. For minutes on end we witness the organic development of her feelings, and nothing beyond."
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Béla Balázs, as quoted in Visible Man, or the Culture of Film (1924)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Asta_Nielsen
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Asta Nielsen
Asta Sofie Amalie Nielsen (11 September 1881 – 24 May 1972) was a Danish silent film actress.
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