Close-Up Blog-a-thon

[Editor's note: The Close-up Blog-a-thon ran Oct. 12-21, but because new entries have continued to appear, we're going to keep updating this table of contents. If you write an entry and would like it to be listed here, leave the URL in the comments section or email reeling@aol.com.]

NOVEMBER 5

"Three Nights of a Dreamer." Under the pretext of discussing a close-up in In the City of Sylvia, David Bordwell offers a virtual thumbnail history of the close-up and its uses. The article includes citations and images from G.A. Smith's 1909 silent film "Grandma's Reading Glass" and "As Seen Through a Telescope," Ernst Lubitsch’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and John Carpenter's Halloween.

OCTOBER 29

"Rich Boy 'Throw Some Ds.'" Brandon Soderberg of No Trivia on Rich Boy's close-up-laden music video, by Bernard Gourley, director of Three-Six Mafia's "Stay Fly." "Rich Boy performs in a few locations and throughout his verses, the camera sort of strays away to reveal some effective shots of people and cars that punctuate his raps...There are some particularly amazing shots of Rich Boy, in the center of the frame, rapping, as cars weave around him, and dozens of great close-ups of spinning wheels, sides of cars, and what I'm going to call 'characters' in the video. I say 'characters' and not extras because the people afforded a close-up are quite memorable, and often the way they receive their close-up humanizes them in a way that most music videos don't fuck around with."

OCTOBER 24

"The music video is primarily a medium of close-ups and wide tableau, with very little in between," writes Karina Longworth of SpoutBlog. "In its traditional, performative form, framing is designed to either be tight enough to confirm lipsynch accuracy, or far away enough to properly present multiple bodies in slickly choreographed motion. I am convinced that no director of music videos has worked the close/wide divide better than David Fincher. To be fair, I haven’t seen Zodiac, but I could take or leave his previous five feature films. In my mind, Fincher reached his creative and technical peak between 1989-1990, when he was directing music videos for Paula Abdul, George Michael, Billy Idol and, most impressively, Madonna.

"The miracle of empty hands." Tout va bien on Jean-Luc Godard's Nouvelle Vague. "The screencaps below are not the only close-ups in Nouvelle Vague, but surely the most vibrant and essential in the film. Indeed, they're all close-ups of hands, either during climactic scenes (the 'rescue' scene, the accident scene) or during scenes which, like most of the film, show the start differences between classes."


A new House contributor, Chris Anthony Diaz, walks in the door with two contributions to the Close-up Blog-a-thon. "In the Mood for Love's Finale of Close-Ups" zeros in on the last few moments of Wong-Kar Wai's melancholy love story. "Although the film contains numerous close-ups throughout, the finale possesses the most effectively evocative ones. With the assembly of close-ups working in dialectic unison, one can either interpret them as Wong and Chang prolonging the moment, or us simply witnessing the instance as a sequence of different shots composed aesthetically. Either way it’s a pleasure to behold." And on a more brutish but no less lyrical note: Steve McQueen and Jacqueline Bisset in a gentle and strangely moving exchange in Bullitt. "McQueen downplays his close-up and does not engage Bisset’s gaze immediately. His reaction to Bisset is better conveyed through the tension in the lines of his face in addition to the way he looks downward with a slightly hunched stance, simply listening, his eyes blinking unsteadily. McQueen is a terrific physical actor, especially in a silent and quiet close-up. And I prefer to watch him in action rather than hear him say lines."

"I am in love with Cabiria, a woman who does not exist. How did this happen?" At Big Media Vandalism, House contributor Steven Boone pens a mash note to "The Love of My Life."

OCTOBER 23



"The Evolution of a Hat." Jim Emerson of Scanners follows the hero's chapeau in Joel and Ethan Coen's gangster classic. "Take a look at the four shots from Joel and Ethan Coen's Miller's Crossing on this page: three close-ups of the same hat and a long shot of another one with a body under. The hat in all three close-ups belongs to Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne). The other one is on the head of his boss and friend, Leo O'Bannon (Albert Finney). But let's re-wind a little bit." Literally: Emerson has also cut together a montage of hat-related moments.

"Headlines and Documents." By MZS of The House Next Door.

OCTOBER 22

From Movies of the Year, Nick Tinsley offers a gallery of his favorite close-ups, with emphasis on Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson.

Two from Ryland Walker Knight: one for The House on Juvenile's "Ha" music video; one for Vinyl is Heavy on various other close-ups.

"Point/Counterpoint: or, The Close-Up in Animation/Animation in Close-up": Hannah Frank on dots, Disney, and other animated points of note.

"Mist." Joe's Movie Corner on a mysterious and lovely moment from Disney's 1995 animated musical Pocahantas. "I recently got the 2-Disc Special Edition (I've wanted for two-and-a-half years), and since I'm used to my low-definition and really, really worn-out 11 year-old video, I was taken back by how vibrantly colorful and beautiful it actually is. And because of that, one of the greatest film moments I've ever seen became even better...the scene in the mist."

OCTOBER 21

At The Projection Booth, House contributor Rob Humanick offers a selection of "De-faced Close-ups."


"Finish Your Strudel." Lazy Eye Theater gets underneath a moment from Mel Brooks' Alfred Hitchcock spoof High Anxiety.

"Sometimes the Language of Cinema Can Say Horrifying Things." Expressive Esoterica on Jacques Tourneur's horror film The Leopard Man. "The film, on the whole, is merely good, but this sequence is great, and it distills the essence of the genre into five-and-a-half perfect minutes."

GCCR serves up another post (see his previous entries here and here) with a look at Rock Hudson in Seconds.

Dan Eisenberg from Cinemathematics gives us a double shot of close-ups. First with horror/comedy Evil Dead II: "We begin with a deer's head, a hunting trophy. Suddenly, it turns toward the camera with possessed eyes and laughs at us. The laughter is unsettling, and the look of the deer adds immensely to the sense of fear and unease. Most important is the fact that the angle is from Ash's position, and the deer ir practically looking into the camera as he laughs at us. The lamp laughs at us. If the bookshelves could look in a certain direction, they'd probably be laughing at us. All of this is cut with close-ups of Ash slowly losing his mind. Finally, we cut back to Ash."

Dan E looks at the "Damn Dirty Apes" in 2001: "An ape's face dominates the screen, its eyes wide and constantly moving. This is the first time we have seen an ape's eyes up close, and we see the fear the leopard inspires. This sort of emotion is something we've yet to see so far, and it's something we won't see again until we're introduced to HAL. This is an ape that has human qualities, and it turns out to be more human than David Bowman or Frank Poole. This sort of revelation can be shocking."

Seventeen years after John Wayne's famous close-up in Stagecoach (see Bad For the Glass for a previous entry by The Shamus), Ford gives us another shot of Wayne in The Searchers - Michael Healy at That Barton Fink Feeling submits his third installment to his "Take Your Best Shot" series.

OCTOBER 20


"The Bleek Future." For The House Next Door, Odienator on Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues. "When the film's trumpeter hero, Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington), walks into the jazz club where his former bandmate Shadow Henderson (Wesley Snipes) is showcasing his new group, he is met literally and figuratively by director Spike Lee: Literally in that Lee shares the frame as Bleek's compulsive gambler/former manager Giant; figuratively in that Lee's camera brings him into focus over singer Clarke Betancourt's shoulder after she sings the opening lines of W.C. Handy's "Harlem Blues": "You can never tell what's in a man's mind/And if he's from Harlem, there's no use of even trying."

At The Bargain Matinee, "All Right, Mr. Demme, I'm Ready for my Close-Up: Part II."

Andy Warhol Screen Tests," from J.J. Murphy on Independent Cinema. "The closeup is often used for dramatic emphasis in narrative films, but Warhol made entire films using only this shot, often as a form of portraiture."

"Khaaaan!" House contributor Ken Cancelosi on William Shatner's primal scream.

Jim Emerson of Scanners goes psycho two times: reconstructing the shower scene from Hitchcock's classic using only close-ups of bathroom fixtures, and dissecting the opening credits of Showtime's serial killer series Dexter.

"Gazzara Kills a Chinese Bookie." Gautam Valluri of Broken Projector on Cosmo Vitelli, Ben Gazzara's hero from John Cassavetes' bleak drama. "He is a man who deals in girls, alcohol and liquid cash. He drives around in a stretch limousine even when he can hardly pay for his next drink. Cassavetes and Gazzara provide us with a portrait of an ex-hustler now middle-aged who is struggling to come to terms with his identity and his way of life- gritty and tough."

At Under the Influence, Chet Mellema writes about "Lynch's Close-ups on Suburbia." "For my third and final entry in the Close-up Blog-a-thon hosted by The House Next Door, I am zooming in on David Lynch's Blue Velvet. Lynch peppers his suburban-underbelly masterpiece with many substantive and worthy close ups; however, several such close ups stand above the rest."

OCTOBER 19

Maul of America admires the leathery charisma of Lee Marvin in "The Tao of Lee" "Marvin's expression here suggests the mental calculations he's making as he pragmatically sizes up the situation before deciding to turn tail. Yet, somehow this doesn't diminish his onscreen danger. How many actors could pull that off?"

Peter Chattaway submits The Purple Rose of Cairo -- close-ups and being face-to-"face" with the movie screen, with an impressive sequence.

From All I Need is Everything: "There's a scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral when one of Hugh Grant's buddies wonders if when he finds the right girl he'll be hit 'by a thunderbolt' and know instantly she's the one and only. Later in the film, he indeed meets a girl and mutters to himself, 'Thunderbolt City.' Love at first sight. Even Lennon & McCartney are 'certain that it happens all the time.' In my opinion, one of the greatest 'thunderbolts' ever happens in John Ford's 1952 classic "The Quiet Man."

Forward to Yesterday looks at the use of close-ups in action films and musicals, with emphasis on their ability to take away or restore a character's dignity. "Close-ups can be things of beauty, they can be dramatic punctuation, they can be an attempt to force the audience to feel something (a tactic that never works), or they can undermine a character entirely."

More on QT: Cinevistaramascope regards Rose McGowan in Death Proof. "While Tarantino's talent with cinematic violence is famous, less talked about is the underlying empathy he grants even his most marginal characters. And in McGowan's eyes, we can glimpse the sad story of the girl who never had a chance."

"The Eyes of Anna": From culture snob, an analysis of a sequence from Funny Games (original, not redux).

"Close-Ups, Part II: The Extended Close-Up": Rob Humanick of The Projection Booth on a particularly indelible close-up from Code 46.

From As Cool as a Fruitstand: "I wasn't planning on participating in this blog-a-thon. Nothing immediately came to mind, and in general, I pay more attention to wide shots than close-ups: I love composition above all. However, I was watching Dead Man last night and this series of close-ups was too good NOT to blog about."

House contributor Kenji Fujishima on "Complex Close-Ups in Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows." "Part of the power of the various close-ups strewn throughout Army of Shadows comes simply from its subject matter: this is a film about people who have to keep their emotions to themselves in order to carry on their fight against Nazi occupation in France. Carry any personal attachments that may call undue attention to oneself, and one risks capture, torture and even death (and not necessarily from the enemy either). Thus Melville, using this narrative framework, often employs close-ups as an invitation to scrutinize these characters' faces; it's as if he's daring us to see if there are any flickers of humanity to these French Resistance foot soldiers left, or if, like Alain Delon's Jef Costello in Melville's previous film, Le Samourai, Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura), Luc Jardie (Paul Meurisse) and most of the rest have become consumed by duty and habit."

"Close-ups in Philippine Cinema." By Noel Vera of Critic After Dark. "An article on the use of close-ups in Philippine cinema probably wouldn't be very long--Filipino filmmakers are mostly narrative storytellers that rarely use the medium in formally experimental ways. The close-up for a Filipino filmmaker--at least the classic Filipino filmmaker, the digital young turks may have been doing interesting work on it since--is mainly a punctuation mark, a means of pointing up the climactic end of a scene or film. Filipino films are a stew of intense emotions; close-ups are the filmmaker's way of shoving said stew into your face."

At When the Dead Walk the Earth, Jeff McMahon admires Vincent Price's performance in The Pit and the Pendulum. "Price is Nicholas Medina, a tremulous man scarred after a lifetime of living in the same cavernous castle filled with torture implements, Nicholas's father having been part of the Spanish Inquisition. For most of the movie, Price is in full-blown anguish mode, tormented about the possibility that his recently dead wife (Barbara Steele) might have been buried alive."

M-I-C-K-E-WHYYY." Maul of America faces an animated close-up that has always given him the creeps.

OCTOBER 18



Inspired by the Close-Up Blog-a-thon, Jim Emerson of Scanners spent five days learning how to use the editing software that had previously sat dormant on his laptop and produced the clip embedded above (click to play). "When I put together the images and commentary for my previous post, 'Close-Ups: A free-association dream sequence,' in celebration of the Close-Up Blog-a-thon at The House Next Door, that's what I was getting at. I just didn't have the tools fully express what I wanted to say." For Jim's notes, and reader comments on the piece, visit Scanners.

At My Five-Year Plan, Brendan Bouzard writes about the use of close-ups in films by Eugene Green, an expatriate American making movies in France, and his native-born colleague Emmanuel Levinas. On Green: "Most eccentrically, the films are marked by their stunningly symmetrical compositions, often focusing in tight close-up on human faces in conversation. These face-camera framings are at first jarring, confrontational, even upsetting - there’s something audacious and big-a ‘artsy’ (or big-p ‘pretentious’) about deadpan line-readings being expressed directly to the viewer, and yet, as one of Green’s films transpires, the device becomes remarkably moving - Green’s interest in the human face, often lit in the effusively glowing style of Baroque portraiture, is the surest signal of his investment in the human divine." On Levinas: "Green’s interest in the face is both aesthetic and philosophical. Like any good French intellectual, Green is well-read in 20th century philosophy, and specifically in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, the Lithuanian-French Talmudic scholar and relational ethicist whose work on human identity of ‘the Other’ and ‘face-to-face’ interaction served as grounds for much of the work of Derrida, Levinas’ most important follower."

"The Creature is Sly." The Klaus Kinski Files spotlights two close-ups of Mr. Obsession, from A Bullet for the General and Venus in Furs.

Shahn of Six Martinis and the Seventh Art on a shot of Bogart from Dead Reckoning.

In honor of the late Deborah Kerr, Forward to Yesterday posts close-ups of the actress from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

Bob Turnbull of Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind examines the photograph in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up. "Thomas has convinced himself that he has witnessed something. Looking at photo number 7 in the sequence, we can see that things are becoming quite blurry during the zooming in process. But photo number 8, which is essentially at the same level of zoom as the previous shot, gives a clear picture of a hand holding a gun. Was that actually there or was that what Thomas wanted to see - therefore making it much clearer in his mind then it is on the piece of film?"

"Praying to the Aliens." Clarkblog on the interplay of close-ups and wide shots -- and curves and angles -- in 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Bowman's screaming face strains to pull itself away from from the sights warping past. It's only apparent when studying these stills, but note how Kubrick doesn't allow actor Dullea to move the positioning of his helmet. Wouldn't the astronaut in all likelihood be twisting and screaming with his entire body? The helmet itself remains resolutely forward, as fixed as the frame itself. Bowman bounces around like a brain concussed inside a skull."

Why is this man smiling? Go to Edward Copeland on Film, and Odienator will explain.

More Bride of Frankestein close-ups from Frankensteinia -- from the creation sequence itself. (Lots of agitated or screaming faces in high-contrast black-and-white.) Related: Screencaps of lens flares from that same sequence at Martinis and the Seventh Art.

OCTOBER 17
Matt Noller from uh, Movies looks into the windows to the soul of 28 Weeks Later. "In 28 Weeks Later, our eyes - or, more accurately, what our eyes represent - is what makes us unique. Our capacity for the full range of human emotion can be complex and scary, but it is also wonderful. When humans in 28 Weeks Later are transformed into the undead, the first thing that changes is... "


Ed Howard from Only the Cinema examines Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death and notes how the shadows "accentuate his twisted, cartoonish grin, his petulant whining voice seeming creepily ill-fitted to the sheer evil of his visage."

Liverputty translates a few snarls of Toshiro Mifune in Samurai Assassin.

"Close-ups, Part I: Extremities of Emotion." By House contributor Rob Humanick, for his blog The Projection Booth.

Gareth's Movie Diary looks at five close-ups in films from sub-Saharan Africa: Bamako, La Noire de..., Yeelen, Dakan and Touki-Bouki. "The close-up in films from sub-Saharan Africa is a story as much of absence as of presence - an absence that results from a quite conscious aesthetic choice on the part of many directors. As with so much of the history of post-independence cinema in Africa, at least in francophone Africa, it's possible to trace this choice back to the director known almost universally as the 'father' of African cinema, Senegal's Ousmane Sembène. Although his first feature, La Noire de... features a number of close-ups at critical moments - perhaps most notably a shot where a handheld camera precedes the protagonist as she runs, tear-stained, from a room."

At Tosy and Cosh, "My Favorite Close-Up" -- of the robot boy David (Haley Joel Osment) in A.I.. "This moment in so many ways is the real crux of the film - David's single-minded devotion to his 'mother' is the drive behind the entire film's story, and it is critically important to the integrity and internal logic of the rest of the film that we believe this moment, that we believe that David has changed, fundamentally and forever."

"Back to the Future": On 2001's famed cut (is it a good bone, or a bad bone?). By Maul of America.


"Aloneness." By Matt Zoller Seitz, for The House Next Door.

From the Kingly Books Gallery, a selection of images from films directed by Samuel Fuller.

"When Words Meet Faces" : Bob Glickstein of gee bobg on reaction shots.

OCTOBER 16

At Frankensteinia, a consideration of "The short, apocalyptic life of the bride of Frankenstein." "In terms of technique, James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) is sometimes crude. Its canvas night skies droop; a microphone throws a shadow across the scene at the dungeon door where Frankenstein and Waldman prepare to ambush The Monster. Four years later, Whale traded the original’s raw, claustrophobic expressionism for lavish Hollywood Golden Age glamour. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is awash is pearly grays and deep focus photography. The sets have grown cavernous and meticulously detailed. Heroic music punctuates every scene. Colin Clive is at his manic-depressive best and he gets to interact with the formidable Ernest Thesiger as the most eccentric, eldritch mad scientist of them all. The Monster has lost his malevolent gauntness. He speaks, cultivates a taste for wine and cigars, sheds tears, and pines for a friend. Into this heady mix is introduced The Bride, only to signal a quick, catastrophic end to this macabre fairy tale."

"When one is in prison, the most important thing is the door." So said Robert Bresson, inspiring Darren Hughes of Long Pauses to post three images from Pedro Costa's second feature, Casa de Lava.

Speaking of Bresson: Here's Chet Mellama of Under the Influence with "Bresson's Balthazar Close-ups: Witness to the World."

Dana Danger of Wet Streets (a film blog) peers into "Faces of Death: Close-ups in The Rules of Attraction."

Oggs Cruz of Oggs' Movie Thoughts contributes an entry that's bound to attract all sorts of unanticipated Google traffic: "Blow-Job (1963)."

In "Open Hand," Jeff Ignatius of Culture Snob considers the significance of hands in Fearless, Peter Weir's 1993 drama about plane crash survivors. "Mostly the extremities belong to Max Klein, the distant plane-crash survivor played by Jeff Bridges. What follows is not a comprehensive catalog but covers the majority of these shots. They are presented in the order in which they appear in the movie.
I’ve been curious about the hand shots for years, but even after collecting these screen captures I don’t have a firm grasp on their meaning. So I’m throwing them out there and welcoming comments, hypotheses, and arguments."

In "Windows to the Soul," Film Flap considers two nearly identical super-tight close-ups from Saving Private Ryan: "It's clear from these matching shots that Spielberg wants us to assume the two men are the same person. Not only is the camera move identical, but the final close up is almost a carbon copy. As those of you who have seen this film know, this is a cinematic deception."

At Bubblegum Aesthetics, Cinephile presents seven close-ups from (and related to) Gone with the Wind in "Seven Ways of Looking at an Image." "Moments of spectacular, dynamic movement in Wind are rare: the race out of burning Atlanta, of course (interestingly, the first scene filmed, shot on the old sets of King Kong, and supervised primarily by William Cameron Menzies); Bonnie’s fall off the horse in the second half of the film, which leads to her death, and Rhett’s shoving of Scarlett down the grand staircase, which causes her miscarriage; Ashley’s frantic run home to meet Melanie after the war’s end; and the tracking shots that follow Mr. O’Hara as he races his horse through the Georgia countryside. In his extensive study of Gone With The Wind’s production, Alan David Vertrees writes of the impact production designer William Cameron Menzies had on the film’s look, and quotes Menzies’ credo as an art director: “I am interested in the photoplay as a series of pictures—as a series of fixed and moving patterns—as a fluid composition."

OCTOBER 15

Robert J. Lewis of Nadalander is in a simian frame of mind.

Inspired by this event, the screenwriting-centric movie site Mystery Man on Film looks at some of the different ways in which a close-up can advance a story or define a character -- and shows how it's possible for a screenwriter to suggest a close-up even though the screenwriting books tell you you're not supposed to do that because it makes insecure directors feel threatened.

Whiskey for the Monkey spotlights a scene from The Maltese Falcon, in which Elisha Cook, Jr.'s weaselly character realizes that, to quote an old poker player's maxim, if you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you: "Setting Up Wilmer."

At his blog Muckworld, About.com critic Jurgen Fauth appreciates the tawdry glories of Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror. "It’s one of the profound mysteries of the movie year 2007: why, exactly, did critics embrace Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof the way they did while dismissing the far superior Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse out of hand?"

The Man from Porlock asks, "What do Billy Wilder, Wes Anderson and feet have in common?" Answer: "A Close-Up Connection."

Maul of America takes aim at Fred Zinnemann's original 1973 version of Day of the Jackal.

"5 Women on the Verge:" House contributor Dan Callahan gets close to Jessica Lange, Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Meryl Streep and Ellen Burstyn.

OCTOBER 14

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Melville created a thousand pictures in Moby Dick. Jeffrey Hill takes the blog-a-thon assignment, uh, literary and looks at two chapters equaling two intense close-ups that you will not likely see on film.

SIZZLE!!! At Bright Lights After Dark, C. Jerry Kutner stares at Jane Russell in The Outlaw, a western partly directed by Howard Hawks but overseen mainly by filmmaker, aviator and playboy Howard Hughes. "Unlike, say, Hawks," Kutner writes, "Hughes was less interested in story than in the eroticization of his two young leads, Jack Buetel and Jane Russell." Thanks, Hughes.

Daily Space scrutinizes close-ups from "It Came from Beneath the Sea."

" Emotion through Bodily Motion: Acting and the Frame in John Cassavetes's Faces." The debut article by House contributor Simon Hsu. "The form and strategies that shape Cassavetes’s style thrust the viewer in the middle of the film’s energy. Eschewing long shots almost entirely (among the most memorable: a half-naked hippie Don Juan scrambling over rooftop shingles), the filmic movement Cassavetes creates when he does cut to one from a tight composition results in a brutal, one-two blow to the senses."

At MYRANT, S.R. Bissette calls our attention to "The Necessary Entry."

And speaking of Sergio Leone: Peet Gelderblom's "Negative Space."

Jim Emerson of Scanners lets his moviegoing mind roam in "A free-association dream sequence."

The Shamus posts two more entries at Bad for the Glass: a certain super-spy's introductory close-up and an account of a "clumsy close-up" in the George Clooney vehicle Michael Clayton.

Frankesteinia appreciates the electrifying first close-up of the creature in James Whale's classic.

Flickhead 's out for blood!

Flickhead redux, with a series of close-ups from the original Thomas Crown Affair.

"Major Leaves: Deprogramming The Manchurian Candidate." By Matt Zoller Seitz, publisher of The House Next Door. "One of the great shot-reverse shot sequences in American film occurs 102 minutes into John Frankenheimer's political thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1962): the assassin's deprogramming over a rigged game of solitaire."

OCTOBER 13

"Shootin' the Shit." Culture Snob dollies into a close-up of Harvey Keitel in Wayne Wang's Smoke, and finds the director's choice "overbearing...Would it be any less effective at conveying its information if it stopped short of giving Keitel an oral exam?"

In "Close Transitions," Bohemian Cinema compiles some of the more striking super-tight inserts that Paul Thomas Anderson used to segue between scenes and moments in Boogie Nights. "It should also be mentioned that these shots wouldn't be half as exhilarating as they are if it weren't for the sound effects. Sure, the sausages look great in the frying pan, but what makes it pop? It's the sharp crackling of the grease, almost like a swarm of locusts in its frequency."
"He is totally still. He doesn't blink. He just stares. He seems like a snake, or some kind of predator. He's looking out the window, but there is a coiled violence in him, a potential for action that vibrates in his expression. He is waiting for his moment. But the main reason why the close-up is so arresting, so startling ... is that beneath all of that ... somehow ... is sadness." Sheila O'Malley of The Sheila Variations looks at "Bud White in L.A. Confidential."

Caroline Miniscule of Daily Space peruses three close-ups of "the little Ellison girl" in the 1954 giant ant-fest Them!.

In "Under the Microscope," Insivible Cinema takes an analytical-poetic approach to the topic. "When we respond to a long shot, we are primarily responding to the movement of the camera through space and time. Do I think that the long shot is sexy? Of course. It's all good. But I think that the close-up is radical. I think that it derives its impact from the distortion of how we perceive time and space, and I will attempt to prove it!" With a citation of Scientific American, no less.

Close-ups galore from The Video Watchdog, a.k.a. Tim Lucas. A few of the contributions are blog-a-thon specific -- but pretty much every week here is a close-up blog-a-thon week, as you can see by scrolling down. This week's inventory includes stills of Princess Asa unmasked in Mario Bava's Black Sunday; Claude Jade in Francois Truffaut's Bed and Board; Charles Bronson in Once Upon a Time in the West; Tex Avery's Screwy Squirrel; and two from Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise. The must-click here, though, is his Oct. 8 entry "Persona and the Roots of Captain Howdy," in which the author finds a stylistic link between Ingmar Bergman's Persona and William Friedkin's The Exorcist: subliminal flashes of Old Nick.


"Blind Man's Bluff." Maul of America appreciates what might very well be the single most revolting close-up of Alfred Hitchcock's entire career.

Jim Emerson looks at another Hitchcock film in "North By Northwest: Long Shots as Close-ups." In a second contribution to the blog-a-thon, Emerson gushes over James Coburn in his "Blinded by the grin." Coburn does have some striking pearly whites.


Kimberly of Cinebeats contributes "Making Movies with Kinji Fukasaku," focusing on the Japanese filmmaker's 1968 film Blackmail is my Life. In her frame-grabs, "...a young thug visits an unusual adult club with his lover and pretends to be someone he is not. He is fully aware that any actions he takes while he is at the club will be filmed by some criminals hiding behind a one-way mirror. The criminals think the man is unaware of their cameras and they plan to blackmail him with the film they’re shooting. At first the man is a bit nervous about having the cameras film his every move, but he soon starts to enjoy the idea of being watched while it’s happening. Fukasaku films the entire thing using close-ups that zoom in closer and closer as the scene unfolds, and it adds an uncomfortable intimacy to the action taking place on screen. These moments in the film manage to be erotic, sleazy and even a bit humorous all at once, while showing very little bare skin. It also leaves the audience in the uncomfortable position of being voyeurs who are also unknowingly being observed."

Cinema-Geek.com fetishizes "one of the most erotic scenes in cinema history," from Mario Bava's The Whip and the Body.

OCTOBER 12

"Maybe there are three sure things in life: death, taxes and actors staring into the camera in Jonathan Demme's films." Mike Doc of The Bargain Matinee offers some examples in "Alright, Mr. Demme. I'm Ready For My Close-Up (Part 1)."

"Anatomy in a Murder." Flickhead takes a trip down memory lane...to the Bates Motel!

Joseph B. of itsamadmadblog2 lists three ways that the close-up can be deployed "To Punctuate the Moment."

"World of Dreams" appreciates a particular close-up of Robert De Niro in Once Upon a Time in America. By William Speruzzi of This Savage Art..

Speaking of great effects: Arbogast on Film states, "There's not a cult movie fan in the world unfamiliar with 'the splinter-in-the-eye scene' from Lucio Fulci's Zombie." If you're the exception to that rule, well, Mr. Arbogast is here to give you...an eyeful! Eh HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH! Heh heh! (Cough, cough.) Sorry. Bad Cryptkeeper impression.


"Goosed by Bruce." In which Odienator chums the waters of The House Next Door.

At Reading is my Superpower, House contributor Annie Frisbie publishes an article titled "Too Many Notes" that cites four moments of "musical excess." "I didn’t adhere to the rules of the blog-a-thon exactly, because these aren’t close-ups of faces," she admits, "but each is a moment that highlights performance, and the actor’s body, above all else." No worries, Annie: the original announcement assured participants that this event was "dealer's choice." And even if there were rules, we'd waive them after seeing the first item on your list: "Cyd Charisse’s legs in Singin’ in the Rain." Related: Kristin Thompson's essay "The Concept of Cinematic Excess," Annie's inspiration.

In "Eye of the Beholder," Jonathan Lapper, publisher of Cinema Styles, analyzes "five famous instances of the eye in close-up used to great effect."


Here's Odienator again, this time at Edward Copeland on Film, appreciating one of Fernanda Montenegro's defining moments in Central Station: "The Close-Up as Revelation: Dora the Explorer." Montenegro's character, Dora, is "...so unlikable even director Walter Salles’ camera doesn’t want to get too close to her. This makes his spare use of close-ups of Montenegro more noticeable."


The Moviezzz Blog takes in "Magnolia's Final Shot."


"Up Close and Personal." Jim Emerson of Scanners zooms in on two subjects that appear whenever the fine art of the close-up is discussed: Alfred Hitchcock and The Kuleshov Experiment. With links.


"Opera," directed by Dario Argento, "...is full of close-ups of eyes, as well as close-ups in general, revealing bits of information to the audience in the form of details - black leather gloves, a stray bracelet, a feather, a pair of binoculars. In addition to the taping of Betty's eyes, the narrative is about the act of seeing in identifying the killer." For more, see Peter Nellhaus' blog Coffee coffee and more coffee.


"This is a close-up?" A Daffy contribution by Bob Turnbull of Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind. See also: Turnbull on "The Lovely Meiko Kaji." "One of the major actors of the popular 60s and 70s Japanese exploitation films, she starred in the Female Convict Scorpion series as well as Lady Snowblood. She continues to work today, though mostly in TV, and is known as a confident, intelligent and often outspoken woman. She also possesses an intense gaze and a fascinating, expressive face."

"The Closeup: John Wayne in Stagecoach." "The actor: John Wayne. The part: The Ringo Kid. The film: 1939’s Stagecoach, directed by John Ford. It’s a great film and a great closeup, even if the closeup is technically imperfect. But, as J.J. Gittes observed, it's the flaw in the iris that makes things interesting." By The Shamus, publisher of Bad for the Glass. Related: Sheila O'Malley adds a relevant quote about the Duke from Peter Bogdanovich.

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OCTOBER 11


"10 Close-Ups: A Photo Essay." By Keith Uhlich, editor of The House Next Door.


"Faraway, So Close!" An appreciation of the dolly-in/zoom-in/push-in that moves the spectator from a wide shot to a close-up of a particular character, with examples from Aliens, Black Book, Mulholland Drive, Blood Simple, and Angels in America. By Mike Doc, publisher of The Bargain Matinee.

"The Close-Up as Turning Point: Peter Sarsgaard in Shattered Glass." About a pivotal moment in Billy Ray's biopic about the Stephen Glass affair. By Craig Simpson, publisher of The Man from Porlock.


"10 More ('De-Faced') Close-ups: A Photo Essay." By Keith Uhlich, editor of The House Next Door.

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OCTOBER 10


"Kubrick's Close-Ups: Man vs. Machine." Regarding "...a series of close-ups from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey that all self-respecting cinephiles likely know quite well." By Chet Mellema, publisher of Under the Influence.


"H.I. Pulls the Pin." In which Raising Arizona's outlaw hero dispatches a warthog from hell. By Matt Zoller Seitz, publisher of The House Next Door.

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SEE ALSO

"Freedom Isn't Free." Jeff Ignatius of Culture Snob describes the opening shot of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blue: "The camera seems to start inside a tire. We hear sounds but only see blackness before the camera pulls back to reveal the right rear tire of a moving car. The effect is disconcerting. The shot is unusually intimate with its subject, and its emphases are unconventional and unexpected: a single tire among four, the sounds of the road heard from a perspective that human beings don’t have access to." Includes drunken audio commentary. Yes, really.


"The Nerve Movie Moment: Father and son (2003)." "One unique characteristic of cinema is its ability to truly capture faces. Few sweeping vistas or computer-generated marvels can match a close-up of an interesting face. Ever since D.W. Griffith trained his camera on Lillian Gish, close-ups have been central to cinematic language. But while most filmmakers take them for granted and use them lazily, a few exploit close-ups to their highest potential. One of the great recent films in this respect is Aleksandr Sokurov’s Father and Son." By Paul Clark of The ScreenGrab.