Lev Kuleshov

THE

Russian Film Director
Is known for the 'Kuleshov Effect' where impressions of an image are manipulated to change the viewers perception of the image.
An example of this is when he used footage of actor Ivan Mozzhukhin's expressionless face and edited it together with different images, including a bowl of soup, a dead child in a coffin and a seductive woman.
Audiences believed that Mozzhukin's expression was different with each image, but actually was the same expressionless face throughout.
Mozzhukin's performance was praised about the sorrow he presented over the shot of the dead child, the lust in which he viewed the woman and the pensiveness he portrayed in the image of the bowl of soup, with people believing his expression changed each time.
The implication of the effect is that viewers brought their own emotional reactions to the sequence of images, and attributed those reactions to the actor by investing his impassive face with their own feelings.