Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000248 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1928
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000248
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 being to discuss the other points in connection with its exploitation. • ••••• The Moscow High School of Cinematography was founded in 1919, to prepare cinema directors, actors, cameramen, electricians and assistants. There are about four hundred pupils. The studies are based upon general technology and on the artistic value of right presentation. In this connection, the principal object of attention and instruction is the cutting. The Russian director makes a profound and exhaustive study of the new art of cutting which has grown up in Russia alone, and which is unique in the world of the cinema. The basic principle is never to repeat the same shot twice, and never to prolong, any scene, whether a street with people, or a close up, or swift action, one moment longer than is necessary to convey the meaning to the spectator. This means that instead of about four to five hundred cuts in the film there may be anything from a thousand to four thousand. The brisk, virile and stimulating effect thus achieved goes far in assisting the power of the subjects chosen. As an example, I will cite a moment from Eisenstein's Ten Days (October) of a soldier firing a machine gun. The most astonishing effect was achieved by cutting alternately from a close up of the soldier's head to the spitting gun, with the rapidity of the actual familiar crackle of the machine gun. The impression was so swift as to almost baffle the eye, and lasted about one second, but the feeling of deadliness and death, and the harsh splutter of the gun were as vivid as if someone had actually turned a Maxim on the auditorium. 12