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 #:
00049
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, and Early 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 years are bound to disappear into oblivion ? Shall the camera again become rigid as in the beginning ? No, and again, No ! Retrogression must be avoided by all means. Purpose of the camera must remain centred in the effort to harmonize the tone and sound expression of the talkie with the figurative expression. From what has been shown so far, it is evident that the camera is being caged in a soundproof box. Poor camera ! Alas ! No more of your graceful movements, no more of your happy-go-lucky shifts ? Are you again condemned to the same bondage and chains which you commenced breaking ten years ago ? THE FILM IN ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS I am going to treat the Film from the standpoint of the Freudian Psychic Life. The other standpoint, namicly that of the conscious perceptual reality, has resulted in the Optophonic Cinema. Night dreams, day dreams, fantasies, delirium, are according to Freud direct manifestations of the Unconscious. With these I class the direct visually-excited mass fantasy of the Cinema. 31