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 #:
00059
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
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CLOSE UP 51 to tackle unusual subjects. The fact of publication would be some indication of ability, at any rate, and would lift competent work out of the junk basket, where now it must hob-nob with the dog-eared and weary bundles of the literary agencies (" stage and film rights negotiated "). Success in book form, also, should stiffen the price for the author. And we are talking of original scenarios, conceived as cinema, and not of best selling novels and plays. Further, publication of scenarios would help to extend the cinema consciousness of the public. These thoughts are occasioned by the publication of an unshot scenario, Bombay Riots, by C. Denis Pegge. This book has already been reviewed in Close Up, and in the remarks that follow I am only concerned with that book as an example. Bombay Riots is important because of its intention : it does seriously set to work to find a suitable mechanism. The King Who was a King had remarkably few repercussions, nor was one surprised. The publication of Sunshine Susie, the plums of which were published in shooting script form in the Daily Express, can only be looked upon as a novelty stunt, though, perhaps, there may be seen some sort of weather-cock in that. If we grant that the intention is laudable, the question of form arises. How, for instance, could the film Jeanne Ney be reproduced on paper? The actual working script would no doubt be an interesting document. But there is so' much ad hoc alteration on the floor of even the fullest script that perhaps a more satisfactory result would be achieved if the published scenario' was deduced from the film as finally taken and cut. For we do not just want a blue-print, we are after a work of art, even if a compromise : something that is shapely, with some literary form and style. Mr. Pegge makes a great show of technique : we have our scenes sorted out, numbered, coloured with sound, and the exact duration in seconds calculated. This is all very well for scenes of long duration and slow tempo, but the reader endures unnecessary hardship when the cutting is swift or complex. It is also' academic : in practice a director prefers to say : Scenes 203-233. Quick shots of native women dancing : arms, legs, bangles. Cut in with shots of palm trees in wind, and boats rocking on lagoon. (N.B. Try and persuade Harry to keep camera low). rather than to work it all out elaborately on paper. Because the real artist knows when to apply rule of thumb methods. The method of Bombay Riots, then, is not really justified by a plea of practicality : if the intention is to create in the mind of the reader the effect of the film (which is not in practice visualised as a chain of discrete " shots," but as a flow, a flood or a movement) this form is still less justified. Again, let me sav that I am only concerned with the method that Mr. Pegge has chosen, one of several possible ones. Let us now have an example: for several pages there are quick shots of this nature: