Abstract

The performances of Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII, Mutiny on the Bounty, Les Misérables, Rembrandt and The Hunchback of Notre Dame communicate a thematically and stylistically coherent vision of human identity. Through these performances, Laughton expresses the limits and possibilities of freedom for the self. Drawing on major works of Mikhail Bakhtin and Gilles Deleuze, as well as related theoretical explorations of the representation of identity in film and performance, Laughton is approached as an artist who explores the different ways in which film acting can articulate characters who remain outside psychological or narrative definition. The discussion is a close textual reading of Laughton's performances which focuses on the expressive means available to film actors, especially gesture, the use of dialogue and the use of the gaze. The one film which Laughton directed, The Night of the Hunter , is incorporated into the discussion and is taken as an example of the continuity of Laughton's complex and profound explorations of individual self awareness and identity.