Close Up (Mar-Dec 1931)

Page scan 000207 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 #:
000207
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 PRELIMINARY OF FILM-ART. L. Irzykowski — Balazs; 2. Creative camera and creative montage; 3. The film vanguard; 4. Film in regard to Painting and Music; 5. The Soviet Film ; G. The Tone Film ; 7. Film in the tneatre. 1 1. Irzykowski — Balazs. At a loss, we are on a cross-road. The sudden irruption of the tonefilm which caused technical progress, has checked the development of art. The summary of what has been done up to the present in the sphere of motion-pictures, is becoming particularly actual ; it will allow not only realisation of the foregoing stages but will permit us to compile a preliminary to facilitate discernment of the directory indexes for the future roads of film-art. While considering and discussing the preliminary of film, we must not overlook the Dsiesiata Muza (The tenth muse), a book by a renowned Polish critic, Karol Irzykowski, who has created not onlv a basis for the theory of film-art, but who, thanks to a clear-seeing criticism, has indicated a road for its future development. We are particularlv struck by it when " confronting " Irzykowski with Balazs, the author of the book published recently Der Geist des Films (The spirit of the film),* which may be considered as the best and most ample analysis of film achievement up to the present day. 2. The creative camera and creative montage. We are witnesses of the formation of a specific " optical culture." Parallel to the development of the visual technics (film, the light on the stage, modern photography, photo-montage) has developed the technics of *' looking." The film has refined and trained our sight; we have learned to perceive fugitive situations; we perceive at once the tiniest details and understand in a moment the symbolic significance of the pictures; we know how to " think optically," to create associations of ideas and optical metaphors. * Bcla Balazs. Der Geist des Films. Halle (Saalc), Wilhelm Knapp, 1930; pages 217. 193