Chapter 5: Iconography and Archetypes
These clips demonstrate the way we are expected or trusted to make assumptions about the characters onscreen or their actions, without having details or circumstances spelled out for us.
Excerpt from Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), directed by F.W. Murnau.
Excerpt from Bumping Into Broadway (1919), starring Harold Lloyd.
Excerpt from He Who Gets Slapped (1925), directed by Victor Seastrom.
(note: an early printing of the book misidentified the actress in this scene as Norma Shearer; it is actually Ruth King, and this was corrected in printings of the book made after May 2025)