Close Up (Jan-Jun 1929)

Page scan 00055 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jan-Jun 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00055
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:
June 20, 2024
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CLOSE UP The youngest critic says: The film's idiom is silence. Silence is a cosmic virtue." The youngest critic says : The film's frame is the film's circumscription. The flat film in silence is the supreme film." The youngest critic is absolute, but never exact. The inference to be drawn from Moussinac's words is the complete answer : There are a variety of possible forms in the cinema. The flat silent film is but one form." The flat silent film wdthout prismatic distortion is the first form of the cinema : Alurnau has said as much. Within this category itself there are numerous subdivisions, according to content, sequence, harmonic organization, performance, attitude. There is the genre film, the poster film, the film of social commentary direct or comic . . . from these derive the films of various stylizations, of complex organization, and eventually the film of graphic or cinegraphic distortions. There is the film built on counterpoint, simultaneous or sequential counterpoint. Counterpoint is an indicator to the compound cinema. In relation to the sonorous film this has been already stated in different terms by Kliesler and the Russian directors. Kliesler did not fully or definitely state the contrapuntal or balance basis for the compound cinema, but he did suggest a union of various mgredients towards the end of an optophonetic art. He relegated speech to television. This was in August, 1928. On May 2Cth, 1928, there appeared in The Billboard an article by me on Radio Entertainment ", which said : " Television is the speech-sight medium. The medium of direct imparting and impermanence. The movie 33