Close Up (Mar-Dec 1931)

Page scan 0009 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Mar-Dec 1931
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
0009
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 Vol. VIII No. i March, 1931 THE DINAMIC SQUARE Suggestions in favour of new proportions for the cinematographic screen advanced in connection with the practical realisation of" wide film." This article is based on the speech made by S. M. Eisensteki during a discussion on " Wide Film " in Relation to Motion Picture Production Technique at a meeting organised by the Technicians Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in conjunction with the Directorsand Producers Branches, Fox Hills Studio, Hollywood, September 17th. " It is possible that, at first glance, this article may seem too detailed or its subject not of sufficiently " profound " value, but it is my wish to point out the basic importance of this problem for every creative art director, director, and cameraman. And I appeal to them to take this problem as seriously as possible. For a shudder takes me when I think that, by not devoting enough attention to chis problem, and permitting the standardisation of a new screen shape without the thorough weighing of all the pros and cons of the question, we risk paralysing once more, for years and years to come, our compositional efforts in new shapes as unfortunately chosen as those from which the practical realisation of the Wide Film and Wide Screen now seems to give us the opportunity of freeing ourselves." S. M. E. Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen of the Academy, — I think this actual moment is one of the great historical moments in the pictorial development of the screen. At the moment when incorrect handling of sound is at the point of ruining the pictorial achievements of the screen — and we all know only too many examples where this actually has been done ! — the arrival of the wide screen with its opportunities for a new screen shape throws us once more headlong into questions of purely spacial composition. And much more — it affords us the possibility of reviewing and reanalysing the whole aesthetic of pictorial composition in the cinema which for thirty years has been rendered inflexible by the inflexibilitv of the once and forever inflexible frame proportions of the screen. Gee, it is a great day ! And the more tragical therefore appears the terrible enslavement of mind by traditionalisation and tradition that manifests itself on this happv occasion. 3