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 #:
00052
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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44 CLOSE UP story as it had attracted him, missing" the possibilities he'd seen in it, but using enough of the framework to prevent him doing anything similar. A few points on Movie Crazy emerged. It has seventy per cent, action, and thirty per cent, dialogue, which he thinks about right. I suggested that is because the thirty per cent, talk is already tolerably well explained by -the action. He agreed maybe. Movie Crazy has been a great success in all countries, both dubbed and sub-titled. It is being made in a French version. He takes great impetus from this, feeling that he now knows what lines to work on for comedies with the same appeal in each country, and confessing that he was completely in the dark before.* He is all agog to' get back and start on his new one. Lloyd invented the pre-view. That idea has been copied so much that popping a new picture into a programme is no longer a surprise. For Movie Crazy, he tried a new test. He showed it to an audience of deaf mules. They found only two places which baffled them. This, and his foreign observation, have convinced him that he is on the right track. He chinks talk has helped comedies more than dramas, because a comedy must always have action, and SO' comedians are thus saved from the temptation of being too literally " hundred per cent, talkie." Fresh from Cannes, he declared that Pabst had " a very fine film " in Kee Hotay. I gathered that he was slightly surprised at the scale on which Pabst was working, that he admired his direction of two versions simultaneously, was impressed by the sets, and thought George Robev was the actor taking Robey's part in the French version. To talk to, Lloyd is gay, unaffected, enthusiastic and non-stop. He does not talk of theories, but has a strong working-sense. At the same time, he admits that no amount of money or revision can help a film if he himself does not " click " in it at the start. L'nlike friend Fairbanks, he does not talk of " a story in which I can express myself," but of " the right story for me." And, also unlike Fairbanks, does not feel in the least " finished." So now let's step over to the Ritz. (Even if one doesn't learn much, well, not so much from these film-guys, one certainly learns the insides of hotels). And where is Mr. Fairbanks? The bathroom door is open, so he cannot be pulling that gag. Wait. For twenty minutes. Then in breezes, Mr. Fairbanks, takes the floor to the manner born, brims with geniality and never stops talking; while I think he gets more like Don Alfonso every day. Which is no doubt what he wants. Mr. Fairbanks discusses himself in terms of rhythm and tempo. This is very interesting ; but it is a pity one gets so swept away that when one sees his films, one looks for too> much. Mr. Fairbanks is wise not to wait for Mr. Robinson Crusoe. Last time he was over, it was all " formula " he was looking for. That quest is abandoned. Films have their old