Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 000326 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 #:
000326
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 the inference of the personality of Charlie the man of the street, it is the fantasy within the real. The principle is identical with that mentioned above regarding symbolism. As to the symbolic structure, utilizing the human being, the Ukrainian film, Arsenaly points to its realization. Mr. Fletcher finds the major virtue of the German cinema to be its daring. This is an incidental virtue; I have spoken of the chief contribution of the German film (November Close Up) : it has articulated major principles of the motion picture. The chapbook sums up a number of considerations, which have been treated in more detail in many earlier treatises : the questionable necessity of the musical accompaniment, the scarcity of great films, the incompetence of the practitioners, the conflict between the film-as-art and the filmas-industry. The poet does not accept the whimsical compromise of Jesse Lasky, namely, the film-as-art-industry. The former characterizes the American movie as showmanship, which for him is a barrier to the advancement of the cinematic art. Mr. Fletcher fails to see the deeper-rooted limitation of the American film (refer to my Notes in December Close Up), He believes the didactic intention of the Russian film is another barrier. But if the didactic intention is converted into a cinematic structure ? If the didactic intention, propaganda, is actually social experience? The Russian film is giving its own adequate answer, or, at least promises to, in a multitude of idioms. Fletcher errs in coupling the Swedish film with the German. The latter has never gone beyond the experience of pathos. The Swedish film transcended pathos. The author repeats the purist declaration that the movie is pictorial and not narrative — it 222