I actually wasn't thinking about acting (which is an aspect of it I should consider), and more about the kind of scenes and what level of compression/exaggeration of action one's willing to accept.
To explain the connections in my brain: I wasn't thinking of melodrama because of Howard's reaction shots, which are rather proportionate in context (especially given the level of HIGH COURTOOM DRAMA he's reacting to), but the giving of a speech which is SO DRAMATIC that Barrymore has to end it by dropping dead. Which seems in a somewhat 19th-century mould.
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To explain the connections in my brain: I wasn't thinking of melodrama because of Howard's reaction shots, which are rather proportionate in context (especially given the level of HIGH COURTOOM DRAMA he's reacting to), but the giving of a speech which is SO DRAMATIC that Barrymore has to end it by dropping dead. Which seems in a somewhat 19th-century mould.