Close-ups: Exhibition concept

CLOSE-UPS

The Inner Storms of Carl Th. Dreyer

Exhibition concept by Lene Crone Jensen and Lars Movin

'Close-ups' is an exhibition juxtaposing 'La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc' , a film by the Danish filmmaker Carl Th. Dreyer with film and videoprojections by some ten contemporary artists.

The exhibition will evolve around the crossfields of art and cinema with the Danish film director Carl Th. Dreyer (1889-1968) as a conceputal point of departure. The intention by linking Dreyer to contemporary art is to address aesthetics, themes and human understandings found in the films with contemporary perspectives and interpretations.

Carl Th. Dreyer won international recognition for many of his films and have contributed to film history with a very personal film style, differing slightly from the classic narrative film, although without being totally avantgardistic. Especially The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) has become famous, among other things because of Dreyer's extraordinary use of close-ups and unembellished pictures of the suffering but passionately devoted Jeanne d'Arc. However his special use of close-ups are also present in his later films, such as The Word (1955) and Gertrud (1964), yet in a less dominating way.

In order to address a cinematic style and the experiences and themes connected to it, the concept of the close-up will be used as an optics for the exhibition. The reasons for working with close-ups as a concept and a title are, that

- it is pointing towards the mixture of art and cinema, and a filmic concept that is particularly emblematic of Dreyer and hence a reference to his films.

- at the same time it is a concept that makes it possible to see each work as a close-up, a zoom-in on aspects that in some way can be related to the filmic universe of Dreyer. The angles of the works on the exhibition can thus be seen as having a common starting point, but steering in more directions with focus on different levels: from the close- up as a phenomenon as such; as a formal way of expression connected to various significations, structures and affective manipulations; or in an abstract understanding, as a way to direct and narrow the attention towards a specific theme, which do not only address the cinematic but also more general conditions.

The concept of close-ups are not to be understood strictly as close shots - it can in fact be any kind of shot, as also the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze describes the close-up in his film books. Rather the conception of close-ups are dealing with the relationship between a picture and the surrounding space. What Dreyer is doing, according to Deleuze is the he is " Flattening the third dimension, he puts two-dimensional space into immediate relation with the affect, with a fourth and fifth dimension, Time and Spirit". (Cinema I: The Movement-Image pp. 107-108)

In classic narrative film a close-up enters as a detail in the pattern of the plot or serves to enhance an understanding of a harmonic whole, and in this way it is subordinated to the total shot. But in Dreyers film the close-ups permeate and guide the way we perceive the total picture or the total story. The many close-ups of the naked face of Jeanne d'Arc, for instance, extract the inner passion and suffering from the outer circumstances, the trial against her, and put the 'internal' in the foreground. The close-ups, so to speak, dissolve space and instead direct the attention towards psychological aspects and inner feelings or "inner storms" of the individual human being. What Dreyer tries to obtain through his filmic style is to create a realism that exceeds its own limits in order to get into the inner life of the individual. He wanted to take the audience "fully into the hearts and kidneys of Jeanne d'Arc and the judges", and convey their thoughts and feelings expressed through their bodies to the audience, forcing them to take an interest.

Seen from this description the close-up can be regarded as a tool of dissection - into human relations, sentiments and affections, and in a more general sense into cinematic codes and techniques as well as the impact of cinematic experience. The broad definition of the close-up, elaborated above, will provide the possibility to present works that show the wide range of dealing with the cinematic in contemporary art.

The close-up
is a picture format which gathers a high level of energy. It has a powerful and intensive quality with overall affective implications, playing on suggestion. At least that is how the close-up most often is used and perceived. But paradoxically, in a certain sense, the intensive quality of the images is often mediated through a focus on 'surfaces', for instance of faces that may seem 'quiet' or passive insofar as they are not partaking directly in any action, although they may indicate a development. This paradox between 'silent' surfaces and intensive indications can also be found in the quote by Dreyer mentioned in the

Dissolution of space - fragmentation
The untraditional use of close-ups in Jeanne d'Arc cut and fragment the human body by showing details from unexpected angles. Faces are now and then placed in the lower part of the picture with only the white decor above. But not only the close-ups in themselves but also the montage contributes to a quasi-dissolution of space, and directs the attention towards the picture surface. Sometimes sneering mouths are cut into a face and the angles may shift. The effect is that no real connections are being established between the persons, seen from the perspective of a traditional continuity based montage. At times the montage almost reminds of the cubist ambition to inscribe space and time into the picture surface.

Passion
"My only great passion" was Dreyer's answer when he was asked about his relation to film and cinema in a radio interview in 1950. And passion is an obvious and prevailing theme in many of Dreyer's films - from passions in love to the uncompromising, passionate religious faith. In an general sense, passion can be understood as a dedicated and heartfelt directness against something. In this sense it can also be understood as a close-up, a narrowing focus on something. In Dreyer's films, passion are most often being restricted by society and outer circumstances, leading to suffering. And most often it is the passion and suffering of a woman that in a way then is being marginalized.

If the concept of passion is regarded from a contemporary point of view, some questions can be posed, such as:

Is the concept of passion (and suffering) outdated?
Or has the understanding of passion changed?
How is passion connected to images in our heavily mediated society?

The collector / the encyclopaedic
Dreyer practised what could be called an encyclopaedic approach to the subjects he took up. His method was based on the assumption that "in order to abstract from reality
you have to know the Reality down to the last naturalistic detail." When he collected
documentation he often went so far that the material almost got in the way of the realisation of the work itself. This aspect is most pronounced in relation to the film about Jesus, which he never made but gathered material for in the run of 20 years, he simply drowned in the process. In a certain sense the special library of books, folders and meticulous notes that he build up became the actual work.