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 #:
000257
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CLOSE UP 239 mentioning. This very gifted director, whose skilful use of the camera we always admired, is still looking for work. Will he find anything worthy of his talent ? Cavalcanti had a similar fate. He has worked quite regularly, but never, since the talkies came, has he directed any picture, that was worthy of him. They have been mostly adaptations of cheap farcical plays, the most uncinematographic material one could think of. Now to the group of young French directors who hadn't produced very much before the talkies came, but who had shown quite a few promising qualities, in small jobs. Georges Lacombe, for many years Clair's assistant, has directed various films, but none of them the sort of job he desired. In speaking of his last picture, La Femme Invisible, he said to me : "It appears that the public hissed so much the other night, that the police had to clear out the cinema. I am not surprised. I should have done the same had I not been the director." Now, for the first time in his " directorial " life he has been given a free hand in regard to his next film, of which he has written the scenario. But I can't help being sceptical — I don't feel sure that none of his business-managers will not ask for a " few unimportant changes," with the result that the whole sense of the scenario will be ruined. There is Marc Allegret. Last year, he directed Fanny, from the Marcel Pagnol stage hit. The film, though not rich in cinematographic qualities, won the first prize for the best French picture of the year. One might imagine that all the producers would try to secure Marc Allegret at once. Not at all. For in spite of the fact that he has turned out one successful " commercial " picture, they mistrust him because he is young. He is finally working on Lac Aux Dames, by Vicki Baum, and he had much trouble in securing a financial backing for this venture. Edmond T. Greville has been doing nothing but short pictures from scenarios which are considered " very commercial " by his financial backers^ The result isn't too encouraging. Claude Heymann, for a year with Ufa as French assistant, hasn't succeededin persuading any French producer to give him a decent directorial job. Therefore he prefers to carry on as an assistant in order not to ruin his reputation, as he would inevitably have done if he had accepted any of the inferior jobs which have been offered to him. Pierre Chenal directed one talkie, Le Martyre de V Obese, a fairly successful commercial picture. Has he since been given anything further of that kind ? He certainly has not. The brothers Prevert, of whose brilliant and intelligent farce, L' Affaire est dans le Sac, I spoke a few months ago and which received the most enthusiastic press notices ever given to a French picture, sit about in enforced idleness,, waiting, waiting . . . That is the grand tragedy of French Filmdon in 1933 : The young, able and