 The figure 's mouth is opened wide as if screaming , an expression <unk> took from a still he kept of the nurse screaming in <unk> <unk> 's Odessa Steps massacre sequence in his 1925 silent film Battleship <unk> . In 1984 , the broadcaster <unk> Bragg asked <unk> about the still , and observed that in his earlier career the artist seemed preoccupied with the <unk> of the human mouth . <unk> replied , " I had always thought that I would be able to make the mouth with all the beauty of a <unk> landscape though I never succeeded in doing so . " When Bragg asked why he thought he had failed , <unk> said , " It should be all much more colour , should have got more of the interior of the mouth , with all the colours of the interior of the mouth , but I didn 't happen to get it . " His interest in the mouth was further stimulated by a medical textbook of <unk> oral cavities bought in a second @-@ hand <unk> , kept in his studio and to which he often referred to . 
