The Truth is in the Eyes: Susanne Bier’s Use of Close-ups in The Night Manager

“The Truth Is in the Eyes: Susanne Bier’s Use of Close-ups in The Night Manager” sheds light on aesthetic strategies apparent across Bier’s works. Eva Novrup Redvall points to Bier’s decision to frame and interject eyes as a means of aligning the audience with the visual sensibility of a spy. In her analysis of Bier’s recent and extremely successful foray into serial television drama, Novrup Redvall takes extensive note of Bier’s use of close-ups. Applying theoretical discourses on the close-up and studies of Bier’s stylistic traits in her previous work, she reflects on the “remarkable array” of eyes, as well as Bier’s use of close-ups of objects. She concludes that Bier achieves a high-end mainstream genre production replete with arthouse aesthetics, which forefronts character interiority while highlighting the “complicated tensions” between characters and their circumstances.