EXTREME CLOSE-UP

US, 1990, 93 minutes, Colour.
Craig T. Nelson, Morgan Weisser, Samantha Mathis, Blair Brown, Richard Libertini.
Directed by Peter Horton.

Extreme Close- Up is a television film about a son grieving for his mother. It is also about the mental illness, the depression of the mother. When the mother dies, the boy looks at videos of her, trying to explore the meaning of her life and her illness and its impact on him. He then records his own life with videotape, looking at his life, assessing himself through the images, able to edit the material as he wishes, editing his life, the possibility of editing his reality.

The film was made for television, has a strong cast, and won a Huminitas prize, the awards instituted by Father Bud Kaiser and the Paulists with the media ministry of that congregation. It is a film that repays viewing by younger audiences as well as families – and those involved with people who suffer from depression.

1. The impact of the film? For an adult audience, younger audience? The television audience?

2. The background of home and school? Audiences identifying with the ordinariness?

3. The title, the extreme close-ups of the mother, of the son?

4. The importance of video, recording, selection, contrived, spontaneous? The role of editing and criteria for editing? Portrait of family, sustaining of memories? A way into the truth? The complete or partial truth?

5. The character of David, the build-up to his decision to video himself, the injury? Stephen and his sister? His relationship with his father? Fending for himself, the fights, at school? Mr Bower? The role of therapy and its effect? Laura and her influence? The video and Mr Bower? The quest, the reaction? Laura and her life? The father and his confiscating the video? The end?

6. The mother, a pleasant woman, her place in the family, her moods, bewildering herself and others? Her wrists? The danger to herself? Depression? The video material? David and his resembling his mother? The video, as reality and art? Death, the collage?

7. Philip, his character, his skill as an architect, his love for his family, his wife, the girl brought home? Weeping and control?

8. Stephen, his sister, the role?

9. Laura, her character, pity, the video, anxiety, her willingness to save?

10. The school sequences, the reality of school, David in this context? Its effect on him?

11. David, the experience of therapy? Mr Bower? Skills – and success or not?

12. A message film, for the television audience? The value and humanity of the message?