Close Up (Jul-Dec 1930)

Page scan 00057 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 #:
00057
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 I think the popularity that Zola's books enjoyed, despite the ^tagonism in which the man was held, is of significance. All his novels sold in great numbers, creating records at that time for publishers. Nana reached many thousands ; U Assommoir reached the 100,000 mark in a few months. Zola was an astute showman. It was an age of learning, particularly among the lower classes and he believed riglitlv that great numbers of people enjoyed receiving information at a low cost about factories, department stores, the stock-exchange, the army, etc. It is only logical that the demand for information to-day is even greater, but it is for the cinema, with its great breadth and scope and far-reaching influence, to meet that demand. By such pictures as The General Line, Turksih, Drifters, Finis Terrce, Moana, * * # Thus there is much in modern cinema that was foreshadowed by the Naturalistic novel of Zola. Scientific method, the theory of environment, even scenario-organization and selection of detail is common to both forms of expression. Never, however, in making comparisons and drawing parallels must one confuse the literary outlook of the one with the cinematic outlook of the other. The strongest link between the Naturalism, of the past and the Naturalism of the present is their joint aim, their ultimate end . . . Truth. Terms and labels are nothing. Zola, at the age of twenty, said to his friend Cezanne, " All art is one; spiritualist, realist are only words. . I have taken liberties in snatching paragraphs from the book of Mr. Josephson. I feel, however, that there is so much to be learned from Zola to the gain of the cineaste that 31