Close Up (Mar-Dec 1931)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Mar-Dec 1931
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00032
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:
November 07, 2023
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26 CLOSE UP The free picture showxof to-day, of yesterday? In the trade papers, the story that Western Electric has finished another talkie truck for Lyons, for Shell-Mex, the story that the Middlesex Educational Committee has arranged for talking pictures to form part of the curriculum in Middlesex schools. A realisation — Daylight Projection and Daylight Screen. Cinema managers, henceforth, will they provide a moving poster display instead of the frame of stills? A kind of trailer run in a continuous projector on a daylight screen. This week, next week and From " The Merrv Widow," by Erich von Stroheim. One of the censored scenes, of which this is the only still known to have been published. La seule photo qui ait ete publiee, a notre connaissance , des scenes inter dites de " La Veuve Joyeuse," de Erich von Stroheim. Aus " Die lustige Witwe " von Erich von Stroheim. Diese Aufnahme einer der zensurierten Szenen ist unserem Wissen nach die einzige, die je veroffcntlicht wurde. Photo : Courtesy of Herman G. Weinberg. (Instead of stills, a screen given to audience reaction? There was that trailer for the Keaton film with the laughs of ten men, sitting in a private projection room, scrambled on the sound track. Noctovision could give close up inspection of audience members seated in total darkness. A little bitter for future victims but FUN and NOVELTY. Out-LIFE-cadging the Russian enthusiasts !) So and so : lopping off pieces of red tape. Stills in newspapers; stills outside theatres. Trying to do the job. Trying to catalogue. Trving to order a review under the title, Stills and their relation to Modem Cinema. Finally, lopping off one more piece of red tape. Stills and the Compound Cinema. What fraction of a compound cinema scheme could any still suggest? For example, the student or disciple (whichever it is one is allowed to be by Mr. Seldes) of the Compound Cinema would take the Daylight Screen as an excuse to fill the auditorium with Holophane lights. At the Richmond Cinema the Holophane automatic control provides six hundred and seventy two sequences of colour lighting effects. All the lighting effects may be pre-set on a control panel. Instantaneous " black-outs " can be obtained by colour master switches. Of that the compound cinema bloke ought to be able to make a fine mental haggis! ! At some stage one must give up : put away the red tape with the type ribbon. OSWELL Bl.AKESTON.