Close Up (Jul-Dec 1930)

Page scan 00062 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 #:
00062
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 LP ans, il revient ; ils s'epouseronr . Tout cela sur un rvthme de veille chanson avec inliniment de poesie. Mais les auteurs ne s'en sont pas tenus a cette poesie ; leurs images sent d'une perfection qui les egale aux meilleurs realisateurs professionnels. On s'extasie stir les films russes, souvent Ton a raison ; or, le film de MM. Winter et de Ribon ne leur est pas inferieur. Trop souvent, dans les films russes alternent de belles images et des calembredaines de propagande d'une sombre sottise. MM. Winter et de Ribon s'en sont tenus aux belles images. Leur film est une oeuvre fort noble. Je souhaiterais qu'elle put etre projetee a un large public. Ce serait preuve encore que le cinema francais vaut infiniment plus que ne pretendent certains interesses dont bon nombre d'ailleurs des sovietisants de la plus pitoyable sorte." The film is worthy of the space devoted to it here, and I admittedly prefer to quote M. de Saint-Cyr, an old man, rather than be considered over enthusiastic for amateur possibilities. At the conclusion of the seance, a jeune complaining of the lack of noveltv in these amateur films, projected his surrealist production Lait de Rose, in which white roses float across the screen, castles are built from lumps of sugar and cream pours out of a telephone mouthpiece. Attracted bv an advertisement, I visited recently the Galerie de France and was most impressed by the designs by Boris Bilinskv for the decors and costumes of twelve films. His paintings are verv colourful and where they are not always of the simplicity desired for perfect cinema one must realize that Bilinskv — even less than film-producers themselves — is not allowed the artistic 36