Tom Ford's 2009 film, A Single Man, is about a lost and depressed English professor, George Falconer (Colin Firth), who, in the wake of his life partner's death, becomes suicidal. The film is beautifully shot and Firth delivers a noteworthy performance as always. For me, one of the cinephilic moments in the film was when George drove to the liquor store and parked his car right against the wall that had a huge Psycho ad on it. The ad consisted of an extreme close up of Janet Leigh's eyes and was completely blue. The blue represented his depression and sadness and the eyes reminded me that we are always being watched. This correlates to the many people that George is watching throughout the film (neighbors, student, etc.) and the people who are watching him, (Kenny and Carlos). This also reminded me of the famous T.J. Eckelberg billboard in The Great Gatsby in which his enlarged eyes are meant to represent God's looking down on the corruption of society.
I didn't realize how much A Single Man showed eyes until we talked about it in class, and now that I think about it, I can see that close ups of eyes were used a lot - the camera closed in on almost every character's eyes. Your mentioning that the billboard reminded you of "God's looking down on the corruption of society" is interesting. It is possible that George might have felt bad for being homosexual - especially because in that time period it was 'looked down upon' more than it is today. The scene where he watched the seemingly perfect heterosexual family in slow motion really stuck out at me and reminded me of this. It seemed like he might have been jealous of the family they had in a way - they looked happy and normal, they didn't have to hide from the world like George might have felt like he had. They didn't have his problems and worries. In another way he seemed angry at them for seeming so perfect and happy. This could have been because they were heterosexual, or it could have just been because his partner had died. It could have even meant that he thought the family was fake. It is easy to gather several interpretations because his watching of the family was expressionless.
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