Close Up (Mar-Dec 1931)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

THE FUTURE OF THE AMATEUR FILM MOVEMENT What is to become of the amateur film movement? Sound has brought it to the crossroads and there is no leader to point the way. Obviously to produce sound films — even if they were intelligent and God forbid it if they weren't — is beyond the resources of most amateur societies. Is it, then, any use going on ? If it is, and I doubt it, which road will they take — the hard way of experiment and originality or the easy descent of imitation, lingering in the pleasant valley of " let's-photographdear-grandmamma-on-the-lawn " ? Is it any use making films on sub-standard stock any longer? Have Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Metzner and the others really left us anything to do in silence? Apart, of course, from photographing drains upside down or getting new angles on kitchen sinks, which is no longer done in even the most advanced circles. (All Hollywood left us to do in silence, of course, is suffer. In talkies, even more so.) It is a great pity that the Amateur Film League of Great Britain and Ireland died almost before it was born. Incidentally, I have never seen any reference in any film journal to its demise, which caused much heart burning in the breasts of the members of at least one society I know. Here, I think, is an appropriate place to mention it. I have been wanting to get it off my chest for a long time. Club delegates to the first (and the last ?) National Cine Convention held in London in October, 1929, unanimously decided to form the League with the object of unifying and co-ordinating the movement in the British Isles. What happened to their unanimity when they reached home is a mystery. It was hoped, we were told in a circular, to place services at the disposal of clubs which would include a library for the interchange of films, a library of film books, an annual production competition, a technical bureau and other facilities. Each society was asked to send a minimum donation of £2 — " anything in excess would be gladly received and indeed welcome "■ — to set up a fund for working expenses. I was very enthusiastic about the scheme and persuaded the society with which' I was then connected to send two pounds. Some of the members were against it because the Society had only just been formed and we were very short of funds. 52