Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 000170 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 #:
000170
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 Now I can compare my scrutinies with those of Mr. Seldes. In this way the readers of Close Up mav get a more or less full sense of the film. . . The two major faults of ]\Iamoulian\s film are : there is no sustained rhythmic structure, and there is no sense of speech as abstracted sound. The relation of camera to microphone is not the initial, inclusive and ultimate law Seldes would make it, simply because neither camera nor microphone is the sole instrument of visual film or sonal film. The one positive signifcance of Applause is a vindication of my declaration that an outre-Holl vwood mind will extend the American film. Mamoulian excels Ilollvwood in its own virtue of competence and even elevates the competence at times by his caress of the angles and movements of figures — as when the chorus-women move about the newborn and her mother. It is evident that Mamoulian is more than a job-man, but no matter what sympathetic use of instruments he might evince, the fact that he has not thought of or realized the film in a sustained structure of visual and oral image would have destroyed whatever validitv there was in his craftsmanship. Whether it is the director's fault or not, the voice of the heroine is abominably maudlin. Speech is still realistic. Realitv is achieved solely by analysis. And speech demands analvsis (conventionalization) as much as non-verbal sound. The storv is no more trash than others. It is another version of Stella Dallas and as human revelation it is on no lower level than Halleluiah ! or, when it is finally analyzed 110