The Closer You Look



What happens when you really stop to look.

Synopsis

The Closer You Look is an abstract, impressionistic, view of a notable example of Brutalist architecture in Boston. Ned Daly uses the 1971 Government Services Center by Paul Rudolph as a point of departure for an exploration of what it might mean to look closer at the world around us.

The film’s release now, (January 2020) is especially timely since the Commonwealth has announced plans to “redevelop” the site by tearing down a portion of the structure. The building (also known as the Hurley and Lindemann buildings) is a keystone of Boston’s Government Center and has been both lauded and reviled for decades.

“We are hardly equipped to verbalize the range of impressions the Lindemann’s particular space makes on us”
Harvard Design Magazine


Filmmakers

Director   Ned Daly »
Director Ned Daly was educated as a City Planner at Harvard and spent decades documenting existing conditions in large masonry and concrete structures throughout the US. In the course of this work he prepared photographic records of buildings by Josep Luis Sert, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier.

His earlier films Pastiche Vol1 No1, Why We Went to the Moon, and Abang Aku have played to appreciative audiences at dozens of film festivals on five continents. As an actor he has worked with directors Alan Arkush, Miklos Gyulai and more recently with Morten Tyldum and Greta Gerwig.
Composer   Emma Campbell »
Film composer and musician Emma Campbell was born in the UK but moved to the States for love, becoming a step-mom in the process. With a passion for piano playing from an early age, later loves included Beethoven, motorcycles, mountain walking and tea drinking. After working in education for 20 years, Emma is the Music and Choir Director for a church in Massachusetts

Ms. Campbell and Ned Daly previously collaborated on 2017’s Abang Aku, seen and heard by festival audiences from Indonesia to New York City to Cameroon.
Sound Designer   Tim Carey »
Colorist   Nan Daly »
Camera Car Driver   Betsy Daly »
Supervising Sound Engineer   Atsushi Tanimura »

Updated December 2019