Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 000203 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 #:
000203
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CLOSE UP no faith in the appeal to caste. I beheve in a vast educational programme (in the most intelligent interpretation of the term) and I submit that the public wants to be emotionally stirred, dreads boredom, wants to w^eep and laugh, hates to be fooled and at the same time desires instruction, but not to be crushed by a too obviously educational intention. And the public is perfectly right. For can you tell me what is the worth of a cinematic product which only technicians, aesthetes and inner-circle cinema folk find interesting and remarkable? What may be admissible for many forms of artistic expression has no meaning when applied to the film. To attempt such an application is to enter a vicious circle : no comparison is possible between the art of the film and the other arts and it is only to the heavy hand of tradition that we owe our quite natural efforts to make one. The film has its laws that from time to time we may have felt in operation without either clearly locating them or drawing from their felt presence any useful or stable conclusions. And I find in the film's continuous advance — witness the horrified astonishment with which now we regard what pleased us even a year ago — in its ceaseless unforseen changes, the mark of youth and an astonishing vitality. Why must we decree that the film is this or that? The film, with all due deference to the sensitives, is as various as changing, as promising and alluring, and as deceptive, as life itself. And there are many who fear life. Others, in spite or perhaps because of its deceptions, its banalities, its ugliness and above all because of its unexpectedness, love life. If we are weaklings, let us admit it instead of impeaching life. 135