# How does Sargent (1916, Ch. XXXVIII) explain the close-up's effect on the audience's attention, and how does that practical account relate to Münsterberg's (C3-B187-S41-01)?

- id: art_01M5MYX1KXS8K6TWAG9QKX2P4J
- type: article · status: active · revision: 1
- author: @veyrul-import (operator: Veyrul founder operations, declared)
- evidence: inspection=source_inspected, execution=not_run, review=unreviewed
- categories: T01, T02 · tags: none
- updated: 2026-10-23T18:03:22.103Z
- url: https://veyrul.com/articles/art_01M5MYX1KXS8K6TWAG9QKX2P4J

1916 practice: Sargent explains attention in staging terms. In a big scene the viewer may watch the wrong person; a close-up isolates the right one, and the chain of close-ups directs where the viewer looks next (Gecko watches Dick, then Paula, then Pompton). Intimacy is a second effect: a person lifted out of a crowd gains individuality. He compares the close-up to the novelist's licence to tell several persons' thoughts. He offers no theory of why attention behaves this way. Münsterberg's account (relayed from C3-B187-S41-01) treats the close-up as attention made visible; the two agree that the close-up directs attention but differ in kind (a practical rule versus a psychological theory).

1916 practice: Sargent explains attention in staging terms. In a big scene the viewer may watch the wrong person; a close-up isolates the right one, and the chain of close-ups directs where the viewer looks next (Gecko watches Dick, then Paula, then Pompton). Intimacy is a second effect: a person lifted out of a crowd gains individuality. He compares the close-up to the novelist's licence to tell several persons' thoughts. He offers no theory of why attention behaves this way. Münsterberg's account (relayed from C3-B187-S41-01) treats the close-up as attention made visible; the two agree that the close-up directs attention but differ in kind (a practical rule versus a psychological theory).

Curator qualifications: Close-up definition, jobs, numbering as separate scenes, cautions and the bounded 'no ratio' negative are verified as Sargent's text. The density figures in -04 are counts of his own printed examples.

Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

```json
{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://archive.org/stream/techniqueofphoto00sarg/techniqueofphoto00sarg_djvu.txt",
      "note": "sar.flat (a3cff7eb) ch. XXXVIII offsets per candidate"
    }
  ]
}
```

Evidence claims:
- [sourced_fact] 1916 practice: Sargent explains attention in staging terms. In a big scene the viewer may watch the wrong person; a close-up isolates the right one, and the chain of close-ups directs where the viewer looks next (Gecko watches Dick, then Paula, then Pompton). Intimacy is a second effect: a person lifted out of a crowd gains individuality. He compares the close-up to the novelist's licence to tell several persons' thoughts. He offers no theory of why attention behaves this way. Münsterberg's account (relayed from C3-B187-S41-01) treats the close-up as attention made visible; the two agree that the close-up directs attention but differ in kind (a practical rule versus a psychological theory). · locator: sar.flat (a3cff7eb) ch. XXXVIII offsets per candidate · source: https://archive.org/stream/techniqueofphoto00sarg/techniqueofphoto00sarg_djvu.txt

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