Eye to Eye

Eye to eye contact is very powerful in the life of humans. Did you ever notice how difficult it is to maintain eye contact, even for just a few seconds, even with someone you know very well and perhaps love? Or how about those moments when you found yourself exchanging glances with a stranger in a restaurant - not necessarily because you had any real interest in each other, but just because the two of you could not resist the temptation of looking to see if the other person was looking!

 

As an expression of intimacy or aggression, eye contact involves the direct connection of one psyche to another. Simultaneously you see and are seen by the other. You take each other in and size each other up. It’s a direct, no-nonsense meeting of the minds. Eye contact automatically amplifies any emotion, whether it is affection, assertiveness, criticism, doubt, fear, or hostility. And the impact goes beyond just the realm of the psychological. It’s also “primitive” in a very biological sort of way. Babies and highly social animals, like canines and primates, quickly rivet to eye contact.

 

When actors want to convey as much emotion as possible, when they want to draw viewers into the scene as if they are participating in it, they look right into the camera. That’s why photographs of people looking right into the camera are so compelling. We can’t help but stare back and try to look right into their psyche to figure out who they are. We can’t help but feel that we are being pulled into the photograph. Unlike real situations, we also have the luxury of holding that eye contact for as long as we want, because part of us, the logical part, knows that the person isn’t really present, isn’t really looking at us. But there’s another part of us, that primitive and emotional part, that reacts as if the person IS.

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