Experiencing Interruptions?

The Closer You Look

The Closer You Look is an abstract, impressionistic, view of a notable example of Brutalist architecture in Boston. Ned Daly uses the 1971 Government Services Center by Paul Rudolph as a point of departure for an exploration of what it might mean to look more closely at the world around us.

The film’s release now, (January 2020) is especially timely since the Commonwealth has announced plans to “redevelop” the site by tearing down a portion of the structure. The building (also known as the Hurley and Lindemann buildings) is a keystone of Boston’s Government Center and has been both lauded and reviled for decades.

“We are hardly equipped to verbalize the range of impressions the Lindemann’s particular space makes on us”
Harvard Design Magazine

  • Ned Daly
    Director
    Pastiche Vol1 No1, Why We Went to the Moon, Abang Aku
  • Emma Campbell
    Original Score
    Abang Aku
  • Tim Carey
    Sound Design
    Abang Aku
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 33 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 20, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    300 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • London Experimental Film Festival
    London
    United Kingdom
    Official Selection
  • Living Together Again- Venice Architecture Short Film Festival
    Venice
    Italy
  • Architecture Design Art Film Festival
    Palm Springs
    United States
    February 10, 2021
  • French International Film Festival
    Cannes
    France
    Best Cinematography
  • Lund International Architeture Film Festival
    Lund
    Sweden
  • OnArt Film Festiva;
    Warsaw
    Poland
Director Biography - Ned Daly

Director Ned Daly was educated as a City Planner at Harvard and spent decades documenting existing conditions in large masonry and concrete structures throughout the US. In the course of this work he prepared photographic records of buildings by Josep Luis Sert, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier.

His earlier films Pastiche Vol1 No1, Why We Went to the Moon, and Abang Aku have played to appreciative audiences at dozens of film festivals on five continents. As an actor he has worked with directors Alan Arkush, Miklos Gyulai and more recently with Morten Tyldum and Greta Gerwig.

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Director Statement

I have spent over forty years imagining a movie where I am the star and the Lindemann Building is the background. Now I have made a movie in which the Lindemann Building is the star, and I am just an eye with a single point of view.

I love a quote from the late Boston photographer David Akiba

“If the photograph is honest, the viewer may travel on a parallel path to the axis of feeling. There is no certainty of meaning, only the possibility of sharing a living moment.”