Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jan-Jun 1930
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000164
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 — inextricably joined with concentrated angular movements of finger, hand, body — or with the meaningful rock of the Jew — these wait for the thorough student and artist to reanimate in the new medium. * * * The new medium will serve and be served by philology. Undoubtedly someone will use its opportunity to record dialects comparatively. In the comparisons lies a vital clue to standardized speech sounds and rhythmic variations. Take the dialect of the American negro for an instance. The Heywards shied away from it when they made PorgVy but it is luscious with grand verbal play, which will be comprehendible by suggestion — intonation and reference. Verbal meanings are conveyed by non-verbal sounds. The garrulous saxophone is a handy example. Babe " Cox in the current nego revue, Hot Chocolates, suggests all sorts of lovenuances, frustrations and hopes and poutings, by sounds sung to a vocal mood. Do you recall the two clowns. The Love-liirds, who carried on an amorous converse by whistles only? These are very, very elementary hints toward my far-reaching philologic " film. I append two Gullah variations : " Wen oona duh de-day, de-dee' duh no de-day ; w'en oona yent dey, de dee' duh de-day." (When one is there, the deer is not there ; when one is not there, the deer is there). Me yerre um ; no shum ; too long buffo' me shum, me yerre um." (I heard him; I didn't see him; too long before I saw him, I heard him). This so-called " phonetic decay " is a direct suggestion of 104