Film which begins with a close-up of a man eating

A man, objecting to being filmed, comes closer and closer to the camera lens until his mouth is all we see. Then he opens wide and swallows camera and cinematographer. He steps back, chews, and grins.

A small short film about food, and the male body.

A man, a tower of toast bread and a package of inconspicuous contents. A film that begins with a skillful exercise and ends with a treat.

The movie shows how a man eats different meals barbarically and how this ends in a disaster.

"Andy Warhol's 1966 'sequel' to his Blow Job begins with a long static shot of Gregory Battcock looking bored; small movements of his head reframe the elegant tight close-up to make sun and shadow symmetrical on his face, or unbalance them again, while street noises expand the shot's implied space. Halfway through this 70-minute film, the camera pans down to reveal the back of another man's head. Zooms and more pans follow, yet each blocky, high-contrast composition has an assertive power characteristic of Warhol." - Fred Camper

Tasked to produce a short intro to my feature-length essay Cut, I turned to the origins of the close-up, in a scene featuring camera person Billy Bitzer and director D.W. Griffiths. How to live in this new body, with its cuts, its fissures and fractures?

Chinese movie

The film begins with a close-up of a table in a restaurant covered with a checkered cloth, in a composition that strongly suggests a still life. It lingers there for a long time before beginning a slow outward zoom. All the while we overhear poorly recorded snippets of conversation. We see hands move in and out of the frame, lifting glasses and tapping cigarettes. We recognise Edie Sedgwick by her signature dancer's tights and jewellery. The group discuss a recent trip to Tangier; the conversation returns frequently to past and upcoming travel. At one point, a whole, uncut pineapple is delivered to their table, despite the fact that they are in an Italian restaurant: it is not meant to be eaten, but to evoke the possibility of adventure in exotic, semi-imaginary lands.