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 #:
000520
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 PCIXTS FROM LETTERS Your correspondent, IMiSS Fitz-Simonds, is concerned with the question whether the film can c > iie an art and with the question whether music is necessary to a fihn. As to the first ; I aa: :'Jt that Mr. Kardy, whom Miss Fitz-Simonds was answering, was wrong u: -tating that a popular form of entertainment can never become an art, > v t I think IMiss Fitz-Simonds will agree that since much practise and expn^iment is required before the film can be made a purely artistic mediunj, .. iid as the cost of such practise and experiment is comraritively enormous, it will be a long time before anything approaching perfertion can be prodi ccd. As to the question oi ausical accompaniment, I believe that a film mav be shown without music A it does not require it, but if music is used it should be composed for and w.cii a film. At present music limps after the film as best it can. The ni i^iC used in cinemas to-day was never written to accompany a particulai ilm and however suitable a piece of music may appear to be it can nev r be saying the same thing as a film it was never intended to accompany. aless the music is composed for the film, or the film composed for the . . _c — as in the case of The Rosexkavaijer — the accompaniment w.U . r be in pf;rfect harmony with the film. (TOM IvYON, LOXBOX.) I am just an orvlin the screen because in I seem to have growi. as all that I) My op. ^ ledge of the fihn-iii believe you are right that the screen woul supported by the iii . w-ere individuals, tb f iiregoer with more than an average interest in reading are my favourite pastimes ; indeed, /ill the cinema. (Xo, no, no ' I am not as old i ly be of no value and I have no practical know— out, I do think there is artistry in movies, I 4 ting that the screen is an art. I used to think ^e universally recognised as such until it was Literature could flourish because its patrons V as essentially a plaything for the masses and 78