What's with all the CLOSE-UPS?

You're right. Logan apparently was an excellent director for the stage but by and large his movies were clunky affairs. "Picnic" and "Bus Stop" were adequate film versions of the stage plays but Logan botched every musical he transferred to the screen. He directed the original Broadway theater production of Rogers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" so you would think he would have tried to preserve the integrity and beauty of that original show for the movies. Unfortunately the film was a terrible failure (although many people seem to like it). The use of immense close ups, garish color filters during song numbers and an awful beginning (the "Bloody Mary" number almost immediately followed by "There Is Nothing like A Dame" got the story off to a very awkward start from which it never really recovered). It could have been a great film musical had a more adventurous director helmed the movie but that was not to be. "Camelot" is somewhat better but again, many of the scenes are too "stagey", the close ups even more pronounced, the film runs on interminably , the director trying much too hard to instill a sense of magic and wonder into the story where there really isn't any, and although Vanessa Redgrave is a standout as Guenivere I found Richard Harris, fine actor though he was, to be terribly hammy as Arthur. Alfred Newman's orchestration was excellent, the production design was spectacular as were the costumes. The cinematography was rather garish much of the time. All in all, a missed opportunity. "Paint Your Wagon" was the other musical that failed big time, basically for the same reasons as the other films.