Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00023
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 men which includes in its scrutinies Youth. For Youth is not a fact, it is a symbol, and that symbol has no reference to the date of one's birth. It is true that art and youth are related, but it is not the youth of which Lenauer talks, but youth which means fervor. Will Lenauer say that the older Frenchmen whom he condemns are all without fervor? And am I, are we, to deny sincerity and depth of devotion to the film to all those who do not love the film in the way Lenaeur says he loves it? And just how does he love it? Is it a sign of love to condemn all who challenge the beloved? That is chivalry in the wrong category. And just when did Lenauer begin to love the film ? Of course these questions are not for M. Lenauer himself.* Xor do I ask for an answer. These questions contain certain implications : I. The cinema was not born with the motion picture. It has its origins in the first experiences of mankind, and its sources are all the manifestations of life. II. To care for the film onlv mav be a p^ood wav to a career but it is certainly no assurance that the film will be enriched. Creation in one art, or activity in one profession, ^ I am not, it is self-evident, directing my words against M. Lenauer. I am thinking of all the lovers of the cinema who cry their love aloud. I know too many parallel instances in America to be convinced too readily by the declaration: I love the cinema." The American enthusists of 1923 — and now — were superior to the film only a few years before their discovery of it as " art." Their interest came only as a consequence of popular enthusiasm, and an urge to be of the time. But no critical affection is worth anything unless it has grow^n from the visceral pleasure of childhood. Are the young Frenchmen, and young Europeans, experiencing a belated childhood? (I dwell upon the American phenomenon in an article, French Opinion and the American Movie, appearing in Du Cinema) . 13