In the history of close-ups in movies perhaps nothing has been used more effectively than the human eye. For the Close-Up Blogathon hosted by Matt Zoller Seitz at The House Next Door here are five famous instances of the eye in close-up used to great effect. First two early examples of the power of the injured eye in close-up, and three later examples from the sixties of the eye wide open.
Let's start at the beginning. In 1925 Sergei Eisenstein directed his 
magnificent Battleship Potemkin. Concerning the mutiny aboard the Potemkin Eisenstein included a massacre sequence at the Odessa Steps. As I wrote earlier on these pages, while there was an actual mutiny aboard the Potemkin and demonstrations by workers on that same day that enthusiastically greeted the ship when it pulled into harbor there was no massacre on the steps. Eisenstein did such a masterful job that even today most people visiting the steps expect to see some kind of memorial to the massacre. Of all the images contained in this stunning montage perhaps the most recognizable single image is that of the wounded, horrified mother, her eye shot out. Eisenstein could have provided a close-up of her face with a bullet in the cheek, a bullet in the forehead or, more to the style of Hollywood, a bullet to the chest, with her hands clutching the hole in her shirt as she falls to the ground. But Eisenstein went with the eye. Shooting out her eye, through her glasses, made for a close-up of enormous impact and Eisenstein knew it.
Later, in 1929, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali would use the eye again to great impact in Un Chien Andalou. Here a man prepares a razor while a woman waits. When he is done he holds her eye open and then, for no apparent reason, slices across it with his sharpened razor.
For the scene Bunuel used the eye of a cow inserted into a mock-up of an eye socket of the woman. As the razor slices through an oozing gel pours out and the effect is startling - and not for the squeamish. What does the scene mean? That's up to the viewer to decide. But like Eisenstein, Bunuel knew that the eye, that glorious instrument of nature that accomplishes so much for our perception of the world and yet is so delicate and protected (lids constantly open and close to keep it from drying out, tears form to wash away unwelcome particles), was the one part of the face that had the greatest impact.
Between the twenties and the sixties, showing close-ups of shocked expressions with eyes wide open had become standard and cliche. In 1960, another great master of the cinema, Alfred 
Hitchcock, would use the wide open eye in an astonishing sequence from his masterpiece, Psycho. Only this eye sees nothing at all.
Throughout the shower sequence (which could provide it's own post for its mesmerizing blitz of closeups) Hitchcock prepares us for the final close-up. We see the shower head first, round and iris-like, then the drain, with 
water whirlpooling down into its black depths. And then the attack occurs, sudden, violent, without mercy. Marian Crane (Janet Leigh) grasping the shower curtain as the life drains out of her, falls to the floor. As she does Hitchcock cuts to the drain, now with blood whirlpooling down its pipes until the drain itself dissolves into the eye, the lifeless unseeing eye of Marian Crane. As the camera pulls back further we see her frozen face, tiny droplets of water dripping down our only indication we are not viewing a still. Hitchcock knew well the power of the eye that cannot see. The impact of the closeup and the subsequent pull back reveal of her face does more to heighten the horror of what just happened then the stabbing itself.
Finally we set our eyes on 1968, and what could well be described as the greatest use of eye closeups in film history. In 2001: A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick took the close-up of the eye to infinity and beyond: He made it mechanical. As the viewer is introduced to the Discovery, the 
ship piloted by Astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, the camera ambles about the surroundings showing us pods, hibernating scientists, computer main frames and that eye, that red round eye, circling about inside, adjusting its lens (to behold the viewer?). It is the eye of HAL, the computer that manages the daily functions of life support, repair and engine functions of the ship. When we first see this eye it is curious, inviting. It is our, and the astronauts, connection to HAL. He is after all "throughout" the ship having a central core unseen until the climactic showdown between he and Dave. But his eye, his red all-seeing eye, is his avatar. Kubrick knew the eyes give something humanity. And when HAL reads the lips of Bowman and Poole before maneuvering to take over the Discovery, the viewer beholds a malevolence in that eye, an understanding of dread that one can only get by looking into the eyes of their aggressor. Kubrick knew that too.
Once the showdown has concluded Kubrick returns to the eye but this time it is a human eye, that of Dave Bowman. As Dave begins his odyssey that will take him to infinity and beyond his eye is shown in a succession of close-ups that transmit a sense of fear, wonder, amazement and 
bafflement. The colors change, the contrast increases, and that eye, that human eye, begins to look more and more like HAL's eye, the two wonders of Earth, man and machine merging together. When Dave "arrives" at his destination his eyes show shock, then curiosity, then the longing of age. But the close-ups are done. Except for one more. As Dave reaches out to his fate before him in the form of a black monolith the viewer is transported to the next stage of his, and our, evolution. It is the Starchild, afloat in space, headed for home. It turns and beholds us, just as HAL's eye beheld us aboard the Discovery. It's eyes are wide with wonder and curiosity. It's odyssey has just begun.
