Mark's post about Bush's extended silences in the first debate put me in mind of an interview that Michael Caine did with Terry Gross back in 1983, which is included in her new book All I Did Was Ask. She asked how Caine had managed to appear so intimidating in the role of a crime boss in Mona Lisa, using his voice "in a way that showed authority and the willingness to intimidate, and, if necessary, hurt somebody." Caine answered:
Authority is shown not only by voice but by movement. And the first thing in authority is that you never move. If you look at aristocracy and other powerful people, they move very little because everybody is waiting on their every word, wish or command. And their voice is very, very slow because everybody will wait no matter how long it takes them to say what they are going to say.
Anyway, that's one theory -- I mean, assuming the bulge was just a rumple after all.
Posted by Geoff Nunberg at October 11, 2004 01:33 AM