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 #:
00046
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, and Early 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
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38 CLOSE UP H. P. J. Marshall (left foreground) and Joris Ivens (right) on the top of Magnet Mountain during the filming of their picture, " Magnetogorsk." H. P. J. Marshall (devant, a gauche) et Joris Ivens (a droite) au somniet de la Montague Magnet, pendant la realisation de leur film : " Magnetogorsk." H. P. J. Marshall (im Verdergrund links) und Joris Ivens (rechts) auf der Spitze des Magnetbergs, wiihrend der Aufnahmen zu ihrem Film " Magnetogorsk." arise from the American aspiration to be momentarily effective, which coincides with the unwillingness to be thorough in the treatment of social material. Five-Star Final overpitched its tragedy — stretched it beyond the point of elasticity — neutralized the indictment with humor and terminated the drama with a cute remark. Of competence there was much, a competence of verve and of a quality superior to the blue-print workmanship of a Frank Capra, for instance. I am a Fugitive is too spectacular at times, the chain-gang is clustered in two sequences of the film to serve as a lavish background for the innocent prisoner plaved honorablv by Paul Muni. By the end of the picture we are thinking not at all of the chain-gang but of the fugitive, and mainly because he has been made a man of the hour whose hour is destroyed by the vindictiveness of a state, which breaks the promise exacted by the insistence of the popular voice. It is in its characterization of the state (through governor et al) that the picture achieves its main importance. Were it not for the inspired conclusion, when the fugitive's agonized face disappears in the mist, I doubt that the antecedent action would be recalled. Not often does a last image work retroactively in favor of the narrative. The " shocker " at the end of The Public Enemy is memorable solely for its own violence. . . The reason for the existence of a medievalism