Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Page scan 00048 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00048
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 Despite the vast development which the film industry has experienced in America, the fact remains, that the development of the artistic film-photography originated in Germany, just as Germany deserves a lion's share of the credit for raising the artistic level of film production m general. Assisted by its vast resources, America held the fortunate position of being able to exploit these advancements in a most splendid manner. It was a sacred principle in the early days of film-art that the camera must stand as firmly fixed as the Rock of Gibraltar. During the past ten years, however, this principle lost its rigidity more and more, and to-day the camera has become so moveable that it has almost become difficult to control her. The camera glides, slides, rises, is suspended, shifted into all corners and crevices and thus assists and supports the progress of the play. If a film were photographed to-day on old principles of photography, the audience would immediately suspect that an ancient production was being shown. Despite the unusual moveability practiced by the camera nowadavs, the last word, as to the moveability of the camera, has certainlv bv no means been spoken. I can imagine moveability of the camera becoming perfect to such a degree, that the thoughts of the author are so plainly expressed by photography, that sub-titles w411 become fully superfluous. It would take me into too much detail to dwell on this phase at length. Almost over night the slogan appeared : The silent film is dead, long live the sound-film I Does this mean that all the successes scored w^ith the camera during these last twenty 30