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 #:
000206
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, 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:
November 07, 2023
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COMMENT AND REVIEW As we anticipate that Close Up will not be acceptable in Germany during the present revolution, or may even share the distinction of such newspapers as The Manchester Guardian and The New Statesman, in being banned ; we do not propose to print any translation of captions in that language, as has been our custom, until further notice. Film and Photo Exhibition, Paris. 1933. For a long time we had heard about a great international exhibition to be held in Paris this Spring. Under -the auspices of nearly all the important organisations comprising these two industries, it was to be a querschnitt of their function and place throughout the entire world. Hope dawned. But shortly after news came that the promotors had disappeared or been sent to jail. Another exhibition, however, less ambitious, came along instead, organised by the Chambre Syndicale des Industries et du Commerce Photographiques. Without knowing the promoters, we regret to have to say that their exhibition was certainly banal in the extreme. It has even to be asked why the word " cinema " was included, for apart from several projectors and cameras — which would interest only technicians, and they would be alreadv familiar with them — nothing to do with cinematography was exhibited ! The almost total absence of things pertaining to cinema was not the only thing to be deplored. Far more disconcerting were the essentially platitudinous photos on show. Two or three good ones, slipped in by some mischance, and the rest null. One escaped disheartened, thinking of the wonderful things that might have been revealed. It was odd to realise that in 1933 they were showing photographs that our fathers would have scorned. Opening at length the catalogue, light dawned ! Here are passages taken at random from the articles : Tous les Parisiens ont vu cent fois cette scene par les rues : s'agit-il de quelque evenement sensationnel ou seulement d'actualite? Ce sont les photographies qui tiennent le haut du pave — et souvent tout le pave. A eux la premiere place, quand ce n'est pas toute la place. Et la foule, sagement rangee au bord des trottoirs, suit avec sympathie les photographies courant, jumelle 13 X 18 en mains, sinon avec legerete, du moins avec liberte sur la chaussee defendue. Qui done divertirait ce public dans l'attente parfois un peu longue, si ce n'etaient ces photographes et le chien affole qui trotte au milieu des deux foules alignees sans oser devier a droite ni a gauche? Et quand le cortege officiel est passe, quand les autos des agences se precipitent en trombe avec, sur leur toit, l'appareil de prises de vues braque et l'operateur en equilibre, Dieu sait comme ! oh ! alors, quel enthousiasme ! 194