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 #:
000191
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 179 large de-luxe houses, which have never before featured a foreign language film have played it and done splendidlv with Frau Sagan's piece. Perhaps the solution of it mav remain in intelligent " dubbing " into English of certain spectacular films, like the proposed English-dubbed version of Fritz Lang's " M ." Certainly, if the best that can be done is not better than RKO's " dubbing " of Der Raub der Mono. Lisa, the future for the foreign language film in the United States looks dark indeed — having been steadily on the wane for the past two years. Dovzhenko's first sound film, Ivan, received two subscription showings in New York to only fairish critical notice, though the attendance was big, and was promptly relegated to the subsequent runs. It will not duplicate the success of Nicolai Ekk's Road to Life, which must remain the only successful Soviet talkie to date. Potemkin, re-issued in sound, and badly done, did not prove popular. France was represented by La Lune Sur I'Maroc, a fair success in New York only, and the avant-garde film of the Prevert brothers, L' Affaire est dans le Sae, shown for a single performance by the newly organized Film Society. The French version of Dreigroschenoper, with Albert Prejean in Foerster's role as Mackie Messer, had also a single showing by the Film Society. Germany was represented by Friederike, a Lehar score set to the story of Goethe's life (or vice-versa, if you wish) and indifferentlv received. The new von Bolvary-Stolz operetta, Ich Will Nicht Wissen wer du Bist, opened on Broadway as will Mile. Sagan's Kadetten in the next few weeks. Eine Nacht in Paradies with the ubiquitous Anny Ondra, the pride of the Czechs, is best left un-noticed, as well as a number of lesser German musical films and melodramas, like Der Tzauber von Tatra, Eine Tuer geht Auf . . . !, u.s.w. Clearly Zwei Herzen im 3/4 Takt came at psychologically the correct moment ! It is suggested by the American distributors of the new von Bolvary operetta, Ich Will Nicht Wissen Wer Du Bist, that if you liked Zwei Herzen and Maedchen in Uniform, you will like Ich Will Nicht Wissen, u.s.w. O Maedchen , what sins are committed in thy name ! ADDENDA (b) A shortage of product in Hollywood has opened the market for foreign films in America considerably in the last few months. Two Ufa productions are already up for sale in America, and bv the time this appears it mav be possible that Columbia has purchased Pommer's 1933 super-production, F.P.I Antwortet Nicht, and Paramount or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has purchased Morgenrot, Ufa's submarine epic with Rudolph Foerster. Universal has already bought the English-German production, Be Mine To-Nigh t,