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 #:
000253
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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TALKIE DISEASES OF THE FRENCH CINEMA Newspapers publishing articles about the new era of French films, newspapers publishing articles about the decline of the French cinema, newspapers publishing statistics showing that the French cinemas have never been so prosperous, newspapers publishing figures proving that the French cinema is killed by foreign invasion, newspapers reproducing speeches of M. Delac, head of the Chambre Syndicate de La Cinematographic Franfaise, back from New York, and declaring that the quota law is going to disappear completely, newspapers publishing speeches of M. Natan, head of the biggest French company, asking for the exclusion of all foreign films for a year ; because theatres are all showing foreign films, while exhibitors are already scared that they won't have any films next season. And the cinema, as we like it ? The worst of it all is that all the things said in the different papers are true. It all depends on the angle, from which one looks at the situation. I, too, could give you figures here — but I won't. I don't like them. One never knows where they come from and as soon as they are printed, everybody believes that they are correct. And even if they are, what would be gained by it ? M. Natan complains of too many foreign films, but in most of his houses he doesn't show French films, because he hasn't any. He doesn't tell either that his whole production staff has been dismissed indefinitely and production in his studios laid off, for a few months at least. And Gaumont, the other big French Company has confined itself to distributing films (made by small independent firms) which, incidentally, are as bad as possible. Paramount, which used to turn out 60 French films a year (and they, too, were incredibly bad) has closed its studios. Braunberger, once a young and keen producer, gathering in around his studio quite a few promising new cinema craftsmen, is now recovering from an almost complete financial failure and since then has produced only Fir au Flanc a military comedy — a cinematographical tragedy. The independents, each day more numerous, produce French pictures ! Yes, but what ? The oldest and most outworn so-called stage hits of the last two centuries. Nothing, nothing whatsoever, which has the slightest connection with the problems and facts of our day ! The directors can't be blamed for all of it. They are only human beings and as good work, intelligent work, is out of the question and as they need to work for a living, they give in and accept nowadays almost any job. Neither they 235