Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 000219 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 #:
000219
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 At present, the screen proves rather distracting. When the ear is accustomed to American of all shades, and the average audience has become bi-lingual (x-Vnglo-American), then, perhaps, we might be permitted to see a little acting now and again. Until that happy day, however, it might be advisable to educate the cinema-goer by placing him in the darkened theatre, and let him hear the story being unfolded without confusing him by making him take notice of the exquisite acting and productive technique simultaneously. Having survived the first shock and become inured to his fate, the victim will probably summon sufficient courage to think of both production and sound. When he has reached this happv stage, he mav be capable of receiving the following impressions: — Women's voices, with few exceptions, are rather ghastly. They seem to be afflicted with perpetual colds in the head. Engiishmens' voices are superior to others. A savage, making unintelligible noises can be really splendid. Foghorns are very natural. Footsteps on a wooden floor are reminiscent of nails being hammered into a coffin in an Edgar Allan Poe story. (If he ever wrote one about such a subject). A whisky and soda sounds very refreshing. It seems a pity, to me, that is, that it is necessary to include a little screaming in most films, because it always raises a snigger in provincial audiences (I live in the Provinces) and thus breaks the tense effect which has — one hopes — -been carefully worked up by the Producer. However, one cheers oneself somewhat. This enlightened 151