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 #:
000128
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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116 CLOSE UP Clyde, who is a splendid swimmer, makes his way to the shore, and, on coming to his senses, continues to act in accordance with the fatal plan which he has drawn up for the intended crime and from which he has only deviated for a moment. That the situation gathers greater psychological and tragic depth in this form is beyond dispute. The tragic element becomes heightened to a sort of Greek " blind Moira — destiny," which, once conjured into existence, will not relax its hold of the person who has dared to provoke it. It is elevated to a tragic casuality, which, once having entered upon its rights, impels to its logical conclusion the inexorable sequence of events which has been set in motion. This crushing of a human being by a blind cosmic principle, by the inexorable course of laws over which he has no control constitutes one of the basic premises of antique tragedy. It symbolizes the passive dependence of the man of that day on the forces of nature. In this it is analogous to what Engels, in connexion with another age, writes about Calvin : "... His doctrine of predestination was a religious expression of the fact that in the commercial world success or failure depend not on a man's energy or skill but on circumstances beyond his control." (Engels: " Historical Materialism "). Reversion to the atavism of primitive cosmic conceptions, visible through a chance present-day situation, is always one of the means of raising a dramatic scene to the heights of tragedv. But our treatment is not confined to this. It is pregnant with significant stressing of a whole series of stages in the furber course of events. . . In Dreiser's book the rich uncle, for the sake of preserving the honour of the family, supplies Clyde with the means of defending himself. The Counsel for the Defence has not reallv any doubt that Clyde has committed the crime. Xone the less, he concocts a theory of a " change of heart " experienced by Clyde under the influence of love and his pity for Roberta. Not bad when it is simply invented off hand. But how far worse when there ACTUALLY was a change of heart. When the change of heart was the result of quite other motives. When there was no actual crime ; while the Counsel for the Defence is convinced that there was a crime, and, by a flagrant lie, so near to and at the same time so far from the truth, slanders the accused in the attempt to whitewash and save him. And, from the dramatic standpoint, it becomes still more fatal if, immediately after, by the ideology of your treatment you violate the proportions and the epic impartiality of Dreiser's narrative in yet another passage. The whole of the second volume is almost entirely taken up with the trial of Clyde for the murder of Roberta and with the hounding on of ,Clvde to his final doom, to the electric chair.