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 #:
000213
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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CLOSE UP 201 Our film opens with the arrival of an American liner at Manchester Docks and ends with the imaginary tourist leaving from the Municipal Air Port. The picture has, obviously, got enormous possibilities and is the biggest thing we have tried, but it is going to take some making. P. A. le Neve Foster. TELEVISION By Carleton L. Dyer, (The young Canadian Managing Director of the Philco Radio and Television Corporation of Great Britain.) I feel it my duty to try to calm the palpitations of heart and purse of the cinema fans and members of the motion-picture and radio industries here, caused by the statement in the Daily Press of the usually astute Mr. Samuel Goldwyn, to the effect that television will be available in the homes of most people in 18 months' time, for, from mv considerable experience with the aerial projection of pictures, I would say that five years from now would be an optimistic estimate for the things which Mr. Goldwyn predicts coming into operation. A pronouncement in the entertainment industry from Mr. Goldwyn usually carries a lot of weight, for he has had an enviable record of successes in the cinema industry, but when he spoke to the newspapers he went completely off the famous deep end. It is my experience that when a man makes an optimistic statement, such as that which Mr. Goldwyn has just made to the press, he is getting set to back as a commercial enterprise the subject of his optimism, and, if this is the case with him, I venture to predict that he is getting set to jump off the ladder of success, and the flop with which he will land will re-echo throughout the world. Let me speak for a while of my own experience with television : although my company, Philco, is known throughout the world for making as many radio sets as any other six manufacturers combined, it is a little known fact outside scientific circles that they have spent more money in the development of television than in any other branch of their industry. Just what this financial outlay means can be judged from the fact that whenever they produce a new model of the radio receiver it goes into production immediately, usually in a dozen of their factories, and one of the latest models is now being produced at the rate of 10,000 sets per day. Naturally, therefore, the financial outlay made in research and experiments before launching a new model is considerable. For over a year now we have been satisfied that we can produce a perfect television receiver. The thing which Mr. Goldwyn side-steps is the big problem of who is going to put up the money for the building of television transmitters with money scarce, enormous erection costs to face, the uncertainties about the new aerial channel allotments for television, further engineering developments necessary to ensure that sight can be transmitted without distortion