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Close Up (Jul-Dec 1930)

Page scan 000613 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 #:
000613
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 Accident,) I-am-going-to-see-films : therefore, I selected the furthest to p^o — a Slovakian film bv the vouno" director of Erotikon, La Jungle d'une Grande Ville, Most of the imagination had been lavished on the title. Still, the close ups were so immense that they had the quality of sculpture by a famous English artist who appears to use a bicycle pump. They left nothing to suggestion : all that you could want to know was in the pictures. At that size the lips and eyes had every meaning stated that could be given them by overtones. Never, except in Erotikon, have I seen siich enormous close ups. Also, the picture had a technical innovation : close ups were, sometimes, superimposed over long shots. The next morning I consulted Henri Storck. " Of course," he said crossly, " we have a cinema. What of the ' actualities ' ? It is only in the news reels that you will have a chance to hear Wallon or Flemish. I make my living by taking topicals in Ostende. Some of them are being strung together and will be presented at the Congress. They will show you our folk lore (processions, archery, and so on)." The cinema a part, an organic part, of social life. Page Mr. Huntly Carter ! I am interested, too," continued Storck, " in the experimental film. But, you understand, this is my first year of cinema : before that I was in my mother's shop. I was keen. I made an animated cartoon without a camera, painting directly onto the film. I have started several abstracts. Now, I would rather not show them. Wait till I have had more experience." 405