What sculptors do is represent the essence of gesture. What is important in mime is attitude.

Marceau contrasts two neighboring arts to clarify mime’s distinctive aim. Sculpture, he suggests, can freeze and distill a movement into a single “essential” gesture—an emblematic instant. Mime, by contrast, depends less on a single sign and more on sustained “attitude”: the performer’s overall physical orientation, tension, rhythm, and emotional bearing that makes an invisible situation believable over time. The remark underscores Marceau’s belief that pantomime is not merely a vocabulary of gestures but a disciplined embodiment of inner life. Meaning arises from the continuity of posture and intention, not from isolated motions.