Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1928
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:
July 25, 2024
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CLOSE UP A man who appears on the screen ought not to have a wax anatomy and we must feel that he is hving intensely, that his heart beats and that warm blood courses through his veins. Human actions are not objective and are modified by the social influences of the social milieu to which the person belongs, whom we desire to represent. I have not neglected, either, this fact in working. Besides this, I am convinced of the value of an ordered and calm rhythm in the play of the actors and in frequent pauses. I would even say that the pause has a very definite bearing on the action of a film." « Nous avons toujours apprecie, dans le monde des cineastes russes, la valeur et la force de films allemands, dont nous nous sommes touCours inspires dans le domaine technique... au reste, je suis certain que I'Allemagne a pu se rendre compte, dans le cours de ces 2 ou 3 demieres annees, de 1' effort accompli par nous autres, Russes, qui avons reussi, en depit des moyens souvent precaires dont nous disposons, a donner a nos films une forme reellement artistique. 11 me parait que la cause universelle du film souffre actueUement d'un separatisme aigu, ou mieux d'une dispersion trop accentuee des forces disponibles. {( Nous pouvons raisonnablement esperer que dans deux ou trois ans les choses changeront de tournure et que certaines dispositions amelioreront sensiblement la situation actuelle. Lorsque deux compagnies privees ont I'occasion de filmer en commun, les resultats atteints depassent les previsions les plus optimistes. « J'ai recu avec joie la tache, lourde cependant de responsabilite, de tournerle premier film de collaboration russo-allemande. Pour des considerations diverses, artistiques au premier abord, nous avons decide de filmer la nouvelle « Boule de Suif de Maupassant. Bn vertu de ces considerations memes, nous avons legerement remanie cerains passages de cette nouvelle, en la modemisant quelque peu. « Bn ma qualite de modeste regisseur, bien que Ton m'assigne une place distincte et independante dans les milieux du film russe, je vous dirais encore 13