It was a recollection, too, of the necessary muteness of resistance fighters caught by the Nazis, or quietly leading children across the Swiss border to safety, as Mr Marceau had done.
Mr Desplat, in fact, is rather drawn to muteness.
Known by a sequence of names, perhaps designed to protect his royal identity, Zhu Da, or Bada Shanren, suffered or at least feigned a period of madness and muteness in the 1680s.
If you're a bit confused by all the politics and need a quick answer, visit www.shouldivoteukip.co.uk London Sub-Audio Festival, 24th – 25 May (£23 for one day) Clapham Common is to host its very own festival of silent disco, celebrating the oxymoronic power of musical muteness.
This muteness is even more pronounced when it comes to an individual making suggestions to the partner.
Her muteness in this scene is oddly detached: she studies it all with consternation, but also with interest.
He had tried to advance in this way, but had not succeeded, and so he had retreated into the muteness they expected, and perhaps preferred.
A former student of Harry Harlow, the psychologist who is best known for his studies of socially deprived monkeys, Carlson, as she and Earls later wrote, found familiar "the muteness, blank facial expressions, social withdrawal, and bizarre stereotypic movements of these infants".
It is a testament to their artistry that the parts here are greater than the whole, and that the book's muteness only draws attention to the power of its most commanding images.
But she did understand the phrase "elective muteness".
Forget Alan Bennett; imagine "The King's Speech" set on a bare stage, stripped of palatial frills, and scripted for two voices — or one and a half voices — by Harold Pinter, the master of muteness and expostulation.
