A close- up is a shot which tightly frames a person or an object often displaying finer details on a large scale.
In Sunset Boulevard Norma Desmond famously uttered the words “Alright, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” The part acted by Gloria Swanson depicts a washed up silent movie actress who craves the attention she once commanded. Not satisfied with the way that film has moved on, she dreams of returning to the silver screen. By enlisting the help of a failing screen writer she draws him in to her fantasy world.
The close- up invites the viewer to really look into the character. It interrupts the flow of the film and demands that the viewer take pause and consider things. I have noticed a difference between my first painting of this nature and the latter two; the first includes some of the background, some of the wider scene however this is left out of focus so as not to detract too much from the face. The other two paintings are closely cropped around the face alone. Perhaps there is a desire to cut out all other distractions and it is the person alone that tells the story. We do not just feel a part of the situation but are expected to feel what the character feels. What all three paintings have in common is that they are all closely cropped at the head. This was prior to my own cropping. Perhaps we no longer want to linger on an external beauty but want to get inside the mind of the character.
