I only used my first 4x5 camera for landscapes. My instincts were the same as seemingly most people -- that the bigger, bulkier, higher resolution formats were for bigger, wider shots. I shot all of my portraits on 35mm or medium format.
It was when Hoyte van Hoytema was talking about using the IMAX cameras in closer and closer shots on Interstellar. He specifically referred to those shots as resembling large format portraits.
When I did buy my first 4x5 camera, I was in school for cinematography. I'm also an introvert; so, I was way too nervous to ask anyone to model for me at the time. What's more, I had been taught that resolution can be a problem when shooting faces. One of the problems with digital cameras is that they do see every blemish on an actor's face. Large format film has infinitely more resolution than an HD digital camera.
Still, Hoyte van Hoytema is and was right. Oppenheimer, especially in the last shots of the film, shows the cinematic version of what you can get with a large format portrait.
Several of the IMAX shots in the movie were portrait frames of Cillian Murphy. His face is sometimes the entire IMAX screen.
You see every detail. If a makeup artist left the slightest dot, you'd see it.
Granted, IMAX film is only about the same surface area as a 6x6 or 6x7 medium format stills camera; but, with motion, there's a picture to picture mosaic that still photography lacks. When film is whipping through the camera and the projector at 24fps, details are filled in by the brain in a way that can't be done with still frames.
15/70 IMAX is large format by motion picture standards. The same sized negative in stills would be medium format. Still, what we see in IMAX close-ups are effectively what large format portraits give us.
You get something that's huge and small at the same time. The landscape becomes the human face.
It's an opportunity to dig deeper into the eyes (Cillian Murphy's blue eyes didn't hurt this point).
At some point, large format portraits, in both mediums, bridge the gap between the soul of the subject, and the soul of the viewer.