This chapter considers the mask of classical Greek theater as analogous to the close-up on screen. The argument here hinges on the comparable nature of the spectators’ emotional involvement and on the similarity of the psychological effects of masks on stage and faces on screen. The chapter enhances our appreciation of ancient stage practice with a discussion of close-up cinematography of apparently expressionless faces. The chapter further demonstrates the influence of Greek tragedy on the cinema and, on a larger scale, classical playwrights’ and modern filmmakers’ artistic goals concerning audience involvement. To present as coherent an argument as possible across almost 2,500 years, this chapter incorporates a large number of films as evidence and quotes various classical and cinema scholars, many well-known filmmakers, and some actors as expert witnesses. The chapter ends with the famous close-up of Greta Garbo’s face in Queen Christina.

Pufendorf is mainly remembered as a natural law philosopher but he was also an influential historian and a public intellectual. Apart from an early phase where his historical interests followed a conventional antiquarian course he focused on recent or contemporary history as evidenced by his popular and much translated, adapted and imitated European History (1680), his acerbic pamphlet History of Popedom (1679), and the monumental ex officio treatments of recent history of Sweden and Brandenburg: History of Gustavus Adolphus and Christina (1686), History of Charles Gustavus (1696) and History of Frederick William (1695). Pufendorf's historical works are informed by a clear and simple vision of states as unified agents acting within a framework of real (moderate) and imaginary (unrealistic), permanent (geopolitical) and temporary (contingent) interests. He combined this vision, informed by his natural law theory, with an abiding interest in diplomacy and decision making and a corresponding disregard for the concrete political players and the action on the battlefield. As royal Swedish and later electoral Brandenburg historiographer he had privileged access to archival sources. He used this to bolster his authority but also to present a firmly streamlined and occasionally biased account in harmony with his religious and political loyalties.