Word: closeup
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...half a dozen other documentaries on American history (Brooklyn Bridge, Huey Long), Burns mixes archival footage with commentary from assorted experts -- sportswriters, ex-players and other students of the game. Ty Cobb once called baseball "something like a war"; these box-seat philosophers, shot in contemplative, dreamy-eyed closeup, treat it as something like a religion. "Baseball is a beautiful thing," says sportscaster Bob Costas. "The way the field fans out. The choreography of the sport. The pace and rhythm of it." Mario Cuomo, Governor of New York and a ^ former minor leaguer, praises baseball's celebration of community, symbolized...
...Sophie ascending a staircase that appears much too wide for her small frame. She rises on stage. As she mounts the stairs, the orchestra accompanying Mme. Brice becomes increasingly audible, and when Sophie finally stands watching soprano and orchestra from the balcony, the audience sees the singer's face--closeup against black background--through her eyes. After the concert, Sophie proceeds backstage to introduce herself to Mme. Brice and request an audition, and is swept into the tumult of the soprano's life and her post-performance party...
...welcome sign of nature. She is radiant in her servitude; her toil gives her joy because it allows her to see in closeup how the world grows. She is enthralled to slice open a papaya, or watch an ant carry its backpack of crumbs. And with the same fascination, but etched in loss for her own child, the mother watches Mui. At night, as a breeze whispers through the sheer canopy on Mui's bed, the girl says the word mother in her sleep. The mother of the house, eavesdropping on this intimacy, dries her own tears on the canopy...
Plenty of the John Woo stamp remains despite restrictions, however. Woo's most recurrent touch is the arcing closeup. Tight shots on the face, directing attention to the eyes, do not hold still, but arc around the head. The meditative, emotional effect is powerful and highly unusual for an action film...
...festival, one excellent film is a fluke, two are a faint promise. Cannes '93 has showcased a dozen or so delights, including Mike Leigh's comic scorcher Naked, from Britain, and Alain Cavalier's potent French film Libera Me, a deadpan document, in wordless closeup, of political prisoners and their torturers in an unnamed country -- any country, alas. Wim Wenders' Faraway, So Close!, a sequel of sorts to his great Wings of Desire, is a monumentally quirky film essay that gradually, and satisfyingly, surrenders to the conventions of the thriller genre. The festival had two out-of-nowhere finds, both...