Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 000178 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 #:
000178
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 suddenly cease making a noise. This would have preoccupied them at the expense of what the mind felt. And, a last instance, what an excellent laugh the girl had in the beginning, as she was leaving with her detective-sweetheart. Such a stupid, spoilt laugh. We are prepared at once for her type. Mr. Hitchcock risked making his heroine unsympathetic by that laugh .... or maybe he didn't, maybe he was just giving us an ordinary London girl. Well, that was quite an innovation. He let us think what we liked of that laugh and most" directors in talkies don't let us think. They present us with the point of view of someone manifestlv unable to think, themselves. People always hold up against talkies that they prevent you thinking, that thev leave nothing to the imagination That is, save in the terms, true, as at present used. But what should be seen is that if this is true it means that the talkies are impossible to get away from. As an instrument of expression, they are strong, powerful; there is no getting away from them. If a good talkie was made by a good man, therefore, there ojould be no getting away from it. So that talkie must be made. Late in the summer came The Idle Rich. If you didn't think talkies had done anything but say Oh, veah, here vou were. This answered the criticism that the microphone took the movie indoors by keeping it there, in one room, the whole time. Did it deliberately, on purpose. ]\Iaybe couldn't see the new kind of talkie that had to be evolved, but did see at least that if you were play-filming, don't try and make it a film by insert action and scenes, as in Madame X. There was no action in The Idle Rich, It was just talk. The talk woke up the class-consciousness of the middle-classes 118