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 #:
00081
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Switzerland, Global Cinema, 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:
June 20, 2024
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CLOSE UP 73 medium for the presentation of stories of this type. And particularly has this seemed true in the light of the great advancement in cinematic craftsmanship and the means thus made possible for the facile producing of magical and spectacular effects. All in all, therefore, according to this superficial view, films of The Thief of Bagdad, Gulliver's Travels, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and others of similar character ought to have proved exceptionally attractive, as well as profitable. However, the exact opposite has resulted in every instance. All such pictures, and especiailly those exploiting well known players, have been signally unsuccessful. The public doesn't like them; won't have them. Clearly, the modern motion picture has become distinctively and irrevocably associated with realism. Its any incursion into the realm of the ethereal is a psychological contretemps. In the beginning its exhibitions of illusion were acceptable because of the obvious make-believe of the mise en scene and the impersonality of the actors and because of the pictures' general technical crudeness. Every element contributed to the scene of unreality. But with the passing of the primitive mechanics of the cinema and the advent of substantial and recognizable realities, the essential psychological harmony was destroyed. Verity and phantom would not mix. That the refusal of the public to accept present-day marvel pictures is in no wise attributable to any diminution of humanity's love of the fanciful and the fabulous, is emphatically attested by the unrivaled popularity of Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies. Whether knowingly or not, their creator, Walt Disney, has endowed these films in their every component with the basic essence of illusion — unreality of personification, of milieu, of action, and, in particular, the means of representation. There is here, in these animated drawings, no suggestion of photography — and it is photography, so inescapably evident in the cinema proper, that lies at the bottom of our conceptual association of motion pictures with veracious life and actuality. In Silly Symphonies (for which, by the way, a more reputable and worthy name is now being sought) there shines the promise of a renaissance of imaginative films. Embellished with color and sound and devoted lately to the picturing of fable and fairy tale, they are possibly leading the way to a delectable fulfilment of the vision of the early cinema prophets. At any rate, the only hope of such a consummation lies in films of this character. The cinema of Hollywood stars will never be aught but of the earth earthy. Clifford Howard.