Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 000686 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 #:
000686
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 borne by the visual progression. There is a space between these two that is not bridged, and one is disappointed by a film that would otherwise be, in its own category and on its own level, a masterpiece. The theme may be borne by the nature of the personal relationships. There is the instance of Pudovkin's Storm over Asia. The personal relationships are indicative of a larger social relationship. The construction of the film, masterful as it is, is upon a level lower than the level of the experience which this social relationship, the ultimate theme, demands. Therefore the masterful construction, the construction in reality of the American physical film, does not satisfy the unity of the film, viewed from the principle vantage-point of theme, and the critical participating spectator feels himself cheated. I shall not here dwell upon the extremely low levels of social irony to which this same film often falls, although this indicates the same disregard for the ^heme as does the construction. We may contrast to this film Eisenstein's Potemkin, It is true that Eistenstein made no attempt to relate this episode to the entire revolutionary period of 1905. But that was his right, even though it probably kept his film from being more than a powerful film of surfacemasses. + The film stays within the boundaries of the theme, and for once one experiences the pleasure of a decisive unity. Upon a higher level of experience (because of the wider refer J If I may seem presumptuous in my allowing Potemkin only the quality of surface masses, I may say that I expressed the same judgment in 1927 in the National Board of Review Magazine. Shortly after, Eisenstein said in The Nation (New York) that his film was a poster-film. This is exactly a synonym for my phrase, a synonym even less descriptive. 4T2