Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Page scan 000571 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 #:
000571
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 Treasure of Arne was a very simple film, its intricacies were in its transcendental references, in its experience. i In Die Hose we find a very simple narrative, but the references save the film from the simplism which is the tale only and nothing more. The secret lies in the unconcern of the German directors for the experience of the unit, the theme and its references. Again we may compare with The Treasure of Arne a German film, made from Sudermann*s The Cat's Bridge, All the appearances of tragedy but no tragedy in this latter film. Or the film made from another Sudermann, Dame Care. What is the meaning of these films? What do they intend? That they intend no peculiar experience is evident in their impurity. The film is constantly blemished by parts of the narrative that have no place in it. If the film cannot rise above its source, it certainly can fall below it. An instance of this decline is the Zelnik cinematization of Hauptmann's The Weavers. Captions alone cannot make a film universal. What did Zelnik intend here? What was his social apprehension of the theme, and what form should this apprehension take in the film ? There is no evidence that he asked himself these questions. This was another film-job. The German film-directors who have gone to America have ^ Further studies in simplism German-style are : The Three WaxFigures, Warning Shadows, Secrets of a Soul, and The Man with the Tree-Frog. I especially include the other as an evidence of German bluntness. Here is a mystery-play where the mystery is not introduced until the film is well-nigh ended, and immediately solved. In other words, here is a mystery-play without a mystery. Which is mystery enough, I suppose. Murnau's Tartuffe is an instance of a great idea gone stodgy because of simplism. 397