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 #:
00040
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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THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CZECH MOTION PICTURES (The Story of a National Industry.) It was the engineer Krizenecky who, in the year 1898, brought from Paris to Prague the Lumiere camera and produced the first Czech pictures. From the historical point of view it is interesting to note that these Czech comedies (Rendezvous at the Mill, The Hot-dog men and the Bill-sticker, Laughter and Tears) were shown in Prague simultaneously with George Melies' effort, La Nuit Terrible, which many consider the first motion picture comedy of all. Czech pictures, then, have an honourable tradition. But, alas, the early beginning was abortive and, for the next fifteen years, the Czech motion picture industry came to a standstill. The first Czech producing company, Kinofa, founded in 1910, could not, therefore, compete with the rapid advance of American movies. However, the photography of Kinofa' s St. John's Streams was, many years after its production, awarded the first prize at the International Kinematograph Exposition in Vienna. The whole pre-war epoch of the Czech pictures is little more than an historical curiosity and the names of actors, from the legitimate stage, who then appeared before the camera, are not to be found in the Czech pictures of to-day. During the war the blockade of central powers gave birth to a flourishing film industry in Germany and Austria. It was a pity that Bohemia produced no enterprising financier to act as godparent to a similar native industry. The success of the first Czech pictures was not due to technical and artistic perfection but to the atmosphere of the time, when the national feeling was at its height. All that was Czech was welcomed with open arms. A few names, which then appeared in Czech pictures, are, to-day, still connected with the industry : A. Nedosinska, K. Degl, Dr. J. S. Kolar and Joseph Rovensky. In the July of 1918, W. T. Binovec founded the Wetebfilm. Many of the pictures they produced were naive ; a few had a fair artistic quality. This company was, also, the first to establish a serviceable if imperfect studio. Suzanne Marwille. still a star in her own country, was the most talented of the Wetebfilm players. Without experience, but with a great love for pictures, Vladimir Slavinsky made, in 1919, his d^but in film production. The year 1920 saw the establishment of the A-B Studio. The name 34