Close Up (Jul-Dec 1930)

Page scan 00056 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1930
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00056
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 horizons of this subject, its people, its morals." All these documents were classified in folios, pigeonholed and labelled with great care, awaiting the assembly or editing. Zola called this system of documenting the constitution of a portfolio. It has its counterpart to-day in the efficient scenario-bureaux of the Soviet film industry. It is impossible to make a film, wTite a novel, paint a canvas, unless the artist has absorbed the subject, the material, the people, the objects, the dialogue, the architecture, the atmosphere, the environment. For this reason there is nothing in contemporary life (as well as in the storehouse of the past) which should not be of interest to the film director. But the point must be stressed that Zola w^ould always reject episodes or documents offered to him if they had no reason, if their logic did not enhance and strengthen his purpose.* This selection of material, which is a matter of intellect, experience, intelligence and creative impulsiveness, distinguishes the good film director from the bad. Genius lies in the application and the employment of the selected material for the expression of the idea, of the creative impulse. Zola refers to the business of documenting as simply the amusement of a mechanic directing the play of a thousand cog-wheels with meticulous care. But we must for ever be able to distinguish betw-een mere recorded fact of documentary interest and the creative impulse that is the spring w^iich builds such material into a work of art. ^ c.f. Le Corbusier's maxim : '* I shall find my clue in cold analysis. At each stage my duty will be to put the question : Why? Nothing has any right to exist which cannot give a precise answer." 30