Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Nov 1927
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000140
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Switzerland, Early Cinema, and Global Cinema
Format:
Periodicals
Contributor:
Library of Congress, MBRS, Moving Image Section
Sponsor:
Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
As an active film magazine, CLOSE UP lasted only a short time, from 1927 to 1933. Yet the legacy of this English-language periodical, which was published in Switzerland, continues to matter. Edited by Bryher and her husband Kenneth Macpherson, CLOSE UP became THE magazine for energetic debates about the nature of cinema and manifestos imagining new forms of filmmaking and spectatorship. The magazine published articles by filmmakers, such as Sergei Eisenstein, and female literary modernists, such as H.D. and Gertrude Stein. As film scholar Anne Friedberg explains in the anthology CLOSE-UP, 1927-1933: CINEMA & MODERNISM, 'CLOSE UP became the model for a certain type of writing about film -- writing that was theoretically astute, politically incisive, critical of films that were simply 'entertainment.' For six and a half years, CLOSE UP maintained a forum for a broad variety of ideas about the cinema; it never advocated a single direction of development, but rather posed alternatives to existing modes of production, consumption, and film style.' Like Friedberg's own writing, CLOSE UP continues to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of film and media theory. -- Eric Hoyt, 2014
Date Added:
August 29, 2022
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CLOSE UP d'etranges floraisons eclataient. Or, voici qu'en ce xx^ siecle, un autre genie, qui s'etait condamne a I'uniforme grotesque, comme Racine, selon Texigence de son epoque, ava,it contraint ses heros a Talexandrin et aux draperies a Tantique, d'une silhouette toujours la meme, tire non pas deux, mais cent, mais mille hommes. L'ecran par les etranges franchises des gestes, du rj^thme, des expressions, nous force a voir la vraie richesse des etres, leur i mpre visible* mult iplicite. Nulle precaution esthetique ne pent nous leurrer et nous ne prendrons jamais le carton pate de certains metteurs en scenes pour le miracle des Reves. Les secrets qu'un Picasso, par la peinture, a tire des objets, le cinema d'un paj^sage, d'une figure, les force a se lever. La photographic animee de ce qui nous semble si simxple est le seul moj'^en que nous avons d'etre convaincus des metempsychoses, peu de realite de ce m.onde exterieur, de sa pocsie, en un mot. Mais cette poesie, nulle formule ne la suscite. Eblouis par les mots « inconscient, subconscient » par les decouvertes de Freud, certains ont cru qu'un univers sj'Stematiquement de guingois nous donnerait de plus fortes impressions. Ainsi, ai-ie vu un him inspire de Crime et Chdtiment, oil les maisons etaient toutes de travers sans que d'ailleurs rien de frappant n'en resultat. De meme, la perfection de la technique n'est pas tout. Exemple : Varietes, oil Lya de Putti, chirurgicaiement degraissee mais inexpressive de visage, est Tinterprete digne de ce film a succes mais sans imagination. De meme encore de 56