Close Up (Mar-Dec 1933)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Mar-Dec 1933
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00012
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:
November 07, 2023
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.

4 CLOSE UP For some time I worried over the almost supernatural powers, transcending common sense and human reason, which seemed indispensable in order to master " The Mysteries of Udolpho " of creative film production. Dissection of the music of creative film production. Dissection — but not as one dissects a corpse. This is what we have to work at with these young people who come to us for the 3rd Course at GIK — the State Institute of Cinematography. We shall approach this matter simplv and not from the standpoint of preconceived scholastic methods. And we shall not use the corpses of dead productions for studying the processes of montage. The anatomical theatre and the dissecting room are eminently unsuitable training grounds for the studv of drama. And the study of the film is indissolubly connected with the study of drama. To build up cinematography, starting from " the idea of the cinematographer " and abstract principles is barbarous and stupid. Only by critical comparison with the more stadial early forms of spectacle will it be possible to acquire a critical mastery of the specific methodology of the cinema. " Criticism must consist in comparing and contrasting a given fact not with an idea, but with another fact ; for this purpose the only important thing is that both facts should as far as possible be carefully analyzed and that they should present, in relation to one another, different factors of development." (Lenin : " Who> are the Friends of the People?" 1894). We shall study this question in connexion with the living creative process. This will be done first of all as follows : — We shall have to evolve simultaneously the process of work and of method. And we shall proceed not, like Plekhanov, from established principles of method in general to the concrete individual case ; rather we intend, by means of concrete work on individual material to evolve the methods of creative film production. For this purpose we divulge the secret of the " intimate " creative procedure of the regisseur in all its phases and ramifications. Many surprises are in store for the youth who is crammed with illusions. Who has not been enchanted by the classic harmony of the labyrinthine structure of " The Count of Monte-Cristo" ? Who has not been struck by the deadly logic with which the characters and events are woven and interwoven, as though the story had, from the very outset, been conceived just in this form and with these mutual relationships ?