Close Up (Mar-Dec 1932)

Page scan 000260 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Mar-Dec 1932
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000260
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 FIRST OPERA-FILM The idea is to show operas in the cinema, and Smetana's comic opera Die Verkaufte Braut* {The Bartered Bride) served as plot for the first attempt. Not a bad choice for a beginning, for the fresh Slavian rhythms and dances, the rural atmosphere of Smetana's opera, are perhaps more apt for a film than most other operas, if we have to have them. But, to anticipate, he who knows and loves Die Verkaufte Braut for the subtle beauty of the music, and goes to the cinema expecting the same artistic experience, will be deeply disappointed, or — according to his temperament — become enraged at the profanation of " his " beloved music. Can one imagine an3'thing worse, than to hear one's favourite song in the following way : some bars of the melody, and at the same time someone speaking the words, * Die Verkaufte Braut a Reichsliga-Film directed by Max Ophuels.