Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 00061 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jan-Jun 1930
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00061
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 Eisenstein is sentimental. Where sentimentality is used, it is used deliberately, consciously. And it may be the only means of bringing to the mind of the Russian peasant realisation of progress. It is a film created like an alphabet to fulfil a definite purpose, and for this reason alone it is impossible for west European peoples to judge it. It is the finest educational film ever made, but viewed as pure cinema it has not quite the rhythm and power of Potemhin and Ten Days. Bryher. "NOT YET TO BE SEEN" 1. Arsenal, by Dovjenko. Dovjenko's craft has made wide advances since the time of his earlier Zvenigora, Arsenal, a classic of the Civil War in the Ukraine, retains connection with' earlier tentatives ; and remains tentative. Old, tried experiment can be, and is, consolidated here in assurance, in metallic precision. Dovjenko, however, has no static perception, and he has been eager, even a little too eager, to make new experiment again. His is a strangely illuminated perception. Erratic, 39