IMAGE 2

Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up

A significant portion of Kiarostami's 1990 masterpiece Close-Up is dedicated to this image and its variations. The man looking into the camera, Hossain Sabzian, has been arrested for impersonating Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbalf and having convinced a well-to-do family that their home and children are ideal subjects for his next picture. Kiarostami documents the trial (the source of this image), interviews all participants, re-stages (using non-actors portraying themselves) portions of the crime and orchestrates a tender encounter between Sabzian and Makhmalbaf himself that poignantly concludes the film.

If Close-Up is essentially about anything, and it's debatable whether or not it can be satisfactorily reduced or encapsulated, it is about Sabzian's performance as Makhmalbaf: his own interpretation of it, its impact on intended and unintended audiences, and the parallel attempts by the court and Kiarostami at discerning its meaning.

Here we are given a close-up of Sabzian in the courtroom as Kiarostami -- his off camera voice registers enough for the filmmaker to be considered another central character -- asks him to recount the ruse's disintegration. The close-up, however, is complicated by the background presence of an observer, a visual approximation/stand-in of the filmmakers, the court (he's clad in official garb, though his precise position is undocumented), and the audience. Throughout the film's last third, this repeated angle features the sober-eyed Sabzian recounting the details of his alleged crime while the figure behind him displays an array of responses, ranging from the pensive to the indifferent. The filmmaker could easily have isolated his ostensible subject and consequently limited his story's focus; instead he lends half of the frame to a mere observer at the proceedings. Despite the film's title, this frame inhabits the no-man's-land between the close-up and the two-shot.  Kiarostami's image presents explicitly the phantom occupants of any film's close-ups: the audience.

ONG BAK 2: THE BEGINNING

I was asked a few weeks ago by the Chicago Reader's J.R. Jones if I'd like to submit a capsule review of Ong Bak 2: The Beginning to the paper. Here is a link to the piece, which was published on the Reader's website on Tuesday and in print on Wednesday (11/18):

Ong Bak 2: The Beginning

I hope to publish a more detailed piece on the film here in the coming weeks. It's enjoyable as a whole, but eschews most of its predecessor's strengths.

Though not of the same analytical rigor as the essays published here, this opportunity was especially gratifying for three reasons: It simultaneously marked the first time I've been paid for writing and my first appearance in print, and it was an honor to submit a piece to the paper that published most of Jonathan Rosenbaum's output for the past quarter century.

To return briefly to the issue of print publications, I'd like to say that, for what it's worth, my heart still beats for printed media. While my experience with much of the writing by critics upon whom I've modeled my own approach has been on the internet (beginning with Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum, whose print publications were unavailable in my home town), I still quixotically aspire to publish in print. It seems a foolish, antiquated ambition, but a print version of The Pensive Spectator would be an incredibly satisfying culmination, even if the cost of such an operation is prohibitive and its likelihood close to nil. The internet has given me an outlet that I'd otherwise lack, but its qualities as a medium fail to replicate the virtues of a printed journal, newspaper or magazine. Eyestrain and hyperlink fatigue have never marred the page-turning experience.

APOLOGY

The recent period of inactivity at the site has been due to personal and professional obligations that prohibited the kind of care I prefer to take in writing these essays. I'm happy to report that these temporary issues have been resolved and regular updates should once again be the order of the day.

Thanks,
Patrick