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 #:
000418
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 du film en evoquant une suite d'images ou Tart confine au vice, naais ou tous deux sont si bien entremeles que le diable lui-meme n'en saurait faire la distinction. Et le grand soir arrive... la lumiere transpose les petits rectangles magiques sur la surface de neige de Tecran, creant une suite ininterrompue de tableaux, parmi lesquels se glissent, de temps a autre, quelques chefs d'oeuvre. Une intrigue a pris corps. Les beautes, les laideurs ou les platitudes du film sont tirees une a une de leur obscurite, passent en hate devant le rayon lumineux, apportent leur tribut au mouvement general, puis retournent aussi brusquement qu'elles en etaient venues, dans leur prison circulaire. La machine origine la vie, une vie factice, il est vrai, impalpable, mais tout aussi reelle neanmoins qu'une creation litteraire, laquelle ne presente que des mots ingenieusement combines, tandis que nous avons la des images plus suggestives. Le Livre, disent de nombreux detract eurs du film, est superieur, car il expose une infinite de nuances, il est art, tandis que la pellicule n'est que duplicata. La realite est toute autre cependant. La litterature est certes un moyen puissant de realisation d'idees, mais elle est au cinema ce que la description d'un paysage est au paysage lui-meme. La photographic nous donne une liberte plus grande de sentir a notre tour. Le texte est deja trop personnel pour que nous ne subissions pas en quelque sorte sa loi. Les moyens d'expression en art cinemat ographique sont infinis. II y a plus de traits dans la nature qu'il n'y aura jamais de mots pour les depeindre. L'image est rimpression directe, la source de presque toutes nos sensa 64