Close Up (Mar-Dec 1931)

Page scan 000287 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 #:
000287
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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CLOSE UP 269 seeks to extricate himself. In his case, love and material comfort, as well as a foolish dream of social superiority, are his motivating forces. " Part One of my book was purposely and particularly devoted to setting forth such social miseries as might naturally depress, inhibit and frustrate, and therefore exaggerate, the emotions and desires of a very sensitive and almost sensually exotic boy most poorly equipped for the great life struggle which confronts all youth. " Part Two particularly was planned to show how such a temperament might fortuitously be brought face to face with a much more fortunate world which would intensify all his deepest desires for luxury and love, and to show how, in the usual unequal contest between poverty and ignorance and desire and the world's great toys, he might readily and really through no real willing of his own, find himself defeated and even charged with murder . . . " Part Three of the book was definitely and carefully planned to show how an inhibited, weak temperament, once in the hands of his dreams, and later the law, might be readily faced by an ignorant, conventional and revengeful background of rural souls who would, in their turn, by reason of their lacks and social and religious inhibitions and beliefs, be the last to understand and comprehend the palliatives that might have, but did not, attend the life of such a boy, and therefore judge him far more harshly than would individuals of deeper insight and better mental fortune." The first and second yellow and white scripts, prepared for Paramount by Samuel Hoffenstein and von Sternberg omitted entirely the first part of this design and the end. When produced and presented, the film has a beginning and end, makeshift "equivalents " for the processes of An American Tragedy. The picture is, as Ralph Fabri has said, " no ' American Tragedy,' not even a local one, not even a small personal tragedy." Seldom is the thematic conception of An American Tragedy even palely present in the film. When it does show itself even faintly we are led to suspect its right in a film that has no constantly informing theme, An example of Hollywood's art of makeup. Phillips Lord, twenty-nine years old, as the patriarchal Seth Parker in RKO's "Other Peoples' Business. Photo : Radio Pictures. Hollywood et I'art du grimage. Philipps Lord, age de vingt-neuf ans, dans le role du patriarche Seth Parker, de la production RKO : " Les Affaires des autres." Photo : Radio Pictures. Ein Beispiel fur Hollywoods " Kunst der Maske." Phillips Lord, 29 Jahre alt, als der patriarchalische Seth Parker in RKOs " Anderer Leute Angelegenheiten." Photo : Radio Pictures.