Secrets of Body Language (2008)
Humans can communicate volumes without ever opening their mouths, all through the amazing power of body language. This surprising History Channel presentation explores the subtle art of silent (and sometimes, inadvertent) signals, and examines the ways in which political leaders and celebrities use the method to entice audiences to trust and follow them.
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This is an interesting documentary, and one that is superficially persuasive, but how true is the claim made right at the very end that when there is a conflict between a person's words and that individual's body language, the latter is always to be believed?There is a heavy focus here on politicians, from the infamous debate between Richard Nixon and JFK when the former came off worse; we hear and see both Bill Clinton and Hillary, Barack Obama and many others...are politicians insincere? Shock, horror.Of real interest are the cultural differences, don't punch an Arab if he invades your personal space - a sign of aggression with Westerners - that's the way they talk in the Middle East.We see too a couple of notorious examples: Clinton's denial that he had sexual relations with "that woman", and the far more serious one of Susan Smith, who murdered her two young sons by driving her car into a lake with them on the back seat.The work of Paul Ekman is fascinating, but there are good reasons this sort of "science" is not permitted in courtrooms, on this side of the Atlantic at least. Body language can be faked just like poker tells, and people can deceive themselves or simply be mistaken.