Close Up (Mar-Dec 1931)

Page scan 00058 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 #:
00058
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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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