Close Up (Mar-Dec 1933)

Page scan 000124 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Mar-Dec 1933
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000124
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:
June 20, 2024
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112 CLOSE VP demands, it influences the treatment and psychological interpretation of particular situations; and, in fact, the " purely formal " side of the creation of the work as a whole. Curious, too, how it suggests completely new, purely formal " methods which, gradually, and in conjunction, help to evolve a new theoretical conception of the guiding principles of cinematography as such. It would be difficult to set forth here the whole plot of the novel in question — to do in five lines something for which Dreiser required two stout volumes. We shall only touch upon what, viewed from outside, constitutes the climax of the tragedy — the murder itself ; though the tragedy, of course, does not lie here but in the fatal course embarked on bv Clvde, who is driven to commit murder by social conditions. And in our scenario the chief attention is directed to this fact. We see how Clyde Griffiths, having seduced a young working girl employed at the work-room of which he is in charge, is unable to help her to secure an abortion, which is still strictly forbidden in the United States. He sees himself forced to marry her. To do so, however, would absolutely shatter all his dreams of a career, since it would make it impossible for him to marrv a rich heiress who is madlv in love with him. The situation itself is profoundlv characteristic of America where, among the industrial middle classes, there are not as vet any caste barriers to prevent such a misalliance. In this class there still prevails the patriarchal democratic spirit of the fathers, who have not forgotten how they themselves came to the town in rags to make their fortunes. The succeeding generation is already approximating to a moneved aristocracy ; and in this connexion it is interesting to note the difference in the attitude towards Clyde adopted by his uncle and his cousin respectively. However that may be, Clvde is faced with a dilemma : either he must renounce for ever his prospects of a career and of social success, or he must get quit of the first girl. Clyde's adventures in his contacts with American realities have bv this time already contrived to mould his psychology in such a way that, after a long internal struggle (not with moral principles but with his own weakness and indecision) he decides on a desperate expedient. After much reflection he prepares to murder the girl by the upsetting of a boat — which will appear to be the result of an unfortunate accident. He ponders all the details with the exaggerated carefulness of the inexperienced criminal — a carefulness which in the end inevitablv entangles such a dilettante in a fatal network of incontrovertible evidence. And he sets out in a boat with the girl. In the boat the conflict between pitv for the girl and repugnance to her, between weak vacillation and the craving to snatch at brilliant material blessings, reaches its climax.