Close Up (Mar-Dec 1933)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Mar-Dec 1933
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00041
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:
November 07, 2023
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CLOSE UP 83 case of Milestone is one of conscience : he is not sufficiently insistent upon the important subjects he can command and direct. * * * There were other temporary eclipses. The entire industry has been operating in the dark. Joseph I. Breen of the Hays office enumerates the besetting evils thus : The industrial depression ; Too many theatres ; Competition by other forms of entertainment such as radio and dog racing ; Destruction of the illusion surrounding screen personalities by too intimate revelations in the fan magazines; A lack of big personalities on the screen. . . . Not a word about the films themselves ! However, those in the industry itself recognize that something is wrong with the product. They do' not read the difficulty as harshly as I have read it : "... the courage of facing reality and elucidating it in the movies." They call it " topical films " It is interesting to see how the different studios interpret the topical. Columbia, the latest recruit to the Hays organization, issues completely dishonest pictures like American Madness and Washington M erry-Go-Round . The latter boasts of a " courage " that insults the unemployed veterans, who have no* representative in either Washington or Hollywood. Less sychophantic films are those produced by Warner Brothers, a previously dull studio that has awakened with some vigor to the current scene. Jack c