The close-up presents a dualistic paradox for the viewer. There is an intimacy in the proximity of the shot which, as severed from the ‘bigger picture’, necessitates the abstraction of information; the close-up, in its narrow perspective, refers viewers beyond the immediate. The multitude of close-ups of Tautou’s face, presents Tautou iconically, as they create a pause in the film, providing the audience with multiple instances to reflect on the image in and of itself. The power of the close-up comes from the referential value attributed to it. The close-ups of Tautou therefore give the audience an opportunity for their own autonomous imaginative response to the film by pausing the action visually and temporally. As such, the close-up is a strategy that exemplifies greater themes of the film: the spectator and the significance of the image. In presenting Tautou’s face so iconicly throughout the movie, Jeunet is provoking the relationship between film and spectatorship and subverts Hollywood’s mindlessness through creating providing a platform in which the act of autonomous thought is curated.

As an international director, trained in advertisement, and having completed a big-budget Hollywood film, Jeunet uses his understanding of the power of the image to empower his audience to acknowledge the mechanised, technically enhanced visuals presented in Amélie.

Jeunet understands the role of the watcher, the consumer of media, and in the era of Hollywood’s cultural hegemony, Jeunet uses the power of the image, the spectacle, and the cinema, to subvert Hollywood’s hegemonic experience, to creating a platform for autonomy within Amélie. Crafted with a deep understanding of the role of the image in contemporary society, Jeunet’s film expertly empowers the audience beyond mere consumers of media, without isolating itself from the contemporary context, while also film serving as an homage to French cinema.