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 #:
000266
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.

SECOND MANIFESTO BY THE EDITORS OF u EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA" July, 1933. Hollywood, California, U.S.A. " IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE PROJECTED QUE VIVA MEXICO ! IS AS DEFINITELY A HEROIC EPIC OF THE NEW RUSSIAN CULTURE AS THE VOLSUNG SAGA, THE ILIAD, AND PERHAPS THE MAHABHARATA ARE OF OTHER CULTURES. AS SUCH IT IS VERY NEARLY THE GREATEST THING PRODUCED ON THIS SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC SINCE THE BEST DAYS OF THAT OTHER CULTURE WHICH IT COMMEMORATES. THE JOB IS TO GET PEOPLE TO SEE IT. THEY LOOK ON THE FILM AS MERELY A BETTER SORT OF MOVIE (LIKE THOSE REALLY FINE PICTURES MR. ARLISS MAKES) AND SAY ' TUT-TUT, WHAT A SHAME.' " — Kirk Bond, Baltimore Film Student. " THE RAPE OF QUE VIVA MEXICO ! .... A BRAINLESS ACT OF VANDALISM. . . . CRIMINALLY UNPARDONABLE TREATMENT OF A GREAT FILM CONCEPTION. . . . IT IS SAFE TO SAY THAT FUTURE FILM HISTORIANS WILL RECORD YOUR (SINCLAIR & LESSER) VULGARIZATION OF QUE VIVA MEXICO! AS THE WORST CRIME IN THE ANNALS OF CINEMA." — Barnet G. Braver-Mann, in a letter to Upton Sinclair. Since Experimental Cinema's first MANIFESTO ON EISENSTEIN'S MEXICAN FILM was issued, the Sinclair-Lesser group have made several counter-attacks. From the offices of Sol Lesser, over the signature of the publicity director for the film, Mr. Frank Whitbeck, letters have emanated politely replying to the protests of various people who read our first MANIFESTO. The main justification for the deed, as stated by Mr. Whitbeck in a letter sent to one of our collaborators, Herman G. Weinberg, is, " We are not interested in propaganda — only in entertainment." The Hollywood ideal of " entertainment," then, with its connotations of " success," box-office grosses and the implied " infallibility " of judgment of masses of Hollywood-trained movie-goers, seems to be the criterion by which Eisenstein's backers will test the merit of their version of QUE VIVA MEXICO ! The circulation of our first MANIFESTO throughout the United States, not to mention in other quarters of the globe, evoked from Mr. Upton Sinclair himself several public statements, wherein he defended the Lesser version of Eisenstein's film. Among other things, Mr. Sinclair stated that " The present version {Thunder Over Mexico) has been edited in accord with Eisenstein's ideas " (The New Republic, July 5) and, in the same statement, that the present prologue " gives glimpses " of the ancient Mayan civilization, tracing the subsequent Spanish influences, both religious and political, etc., etc., while in 248