Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000485
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 cafes, streets, skyscrapers, newsboys, electric signs, traffic. A politician is assassinated, war is declared, the people are whipped up into a fever of patriotism, panic breaks out on the Stock Exchange. Then, the scenes of war — battlefields — tanks going into action — explosions — men dying in agony, followed by graveyards — the financial chaos — the triumph of the American dollar. The models used (mostly cardboard) were simple but extraordinarily effective, as also were the close-ups and silhouettes of human beings in a number of scenes. Realistic shots of battlefield explosions were achieved by the use of tin reflectors. For the success of a film of this character nearly everything depends on the lighting and the cutting, and both are excellent. Yet the producers worked throughout with only tv;o " Kodalites " ! The cutting based on the Russian method, was very good. Some shots were reduced to a matter of frames. Produced on 16 mmi. stock, Gaiety of Nations sets a standard which every amateur should study closely. Some amateurs seem to aim at imitating the large scale productions of the professional studios. Such methods are almost bound to result in failure, for obvious reasons. The function of amateur cinematography should be to create, and not to imitate, to bring somiething new to the Cinemia, and not to copy old methods. ^lessrs. Ahern and Sewell have shewn what can be done, and hovr it can be done, and the example they have set should result in nothing but good for the amateur film movem.ent in Britain. A. W. Impressed by The Mercury Press Ltd., London, Ileord and Ckelmsford.