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 #:
000268
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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250 CLOSE UP another statement (a letter to The Modern Monthly, July, 1933), Mr. Sinclair charged that " There has been a campaign of deliberate falsification carried on concerning this picture." On several occasions Mr. Sinclair also quoted the only favourable review thus far written on Thunder Over Mexico, — an " ecstatic " review by his intimate friend, Mr. Robert Wagner, editor of a Beverly Hills society journal, Script, in which said Wagner referred to the Sinclair-Lesser conception of Eisenstein's magnum opus as the " bastard child of the shotgun marriage of Moscow and Hollywood. And like so many illegitimate children, it is more beautiful than either parent." Besides these statements, there have been further denials by Mr. Sinclair, all designed, of course, to justify Sol Lesser's " interpretation " of Eisenstein's scenario, all proclaiming the kinship between Mr. Lesser's editing of the film and Eisenstein's own ideas, and all thereby evading the main issue, — i.e., the destruction of a supreme work of art. Through the courtesy of our esteemed colleagues, the Editors of CLOSE UP, we again take the opportunity to condemn the Sinclair-Lesser version of QUE VLVA MEXICO ! and we submit the following statement of facts for the consideration of the European film-world : I. Thunder Over Mexico has definitely NOT been edited " in accord with Eisenstein's ideas." Neither Eisenstein's cinematic ideas nor his political and cultural approach to the subject-matter are evident in the Sinclair-Lesser version. Cinematically, Thunder Over Mexico is on a lower level than the average good product turned out of the commercial film studios of Hollywood. Culturally, Thunder Over Mexico does not arouse even a faint suspicion of Eisenstein's original vision and interpretation of the age-old Mexican land. II. Thunder Over Mexico represents only an isolated fragment of the original QUE VIVA MEXICO! Three complete episodes (or "novels," as Eisenstein calls them in the scenario) are missing from Mr. Lesser's picture (which is not Eisenstein's picture) : " TEHUANTEPEC," " FIESTA," and the " SOLDADERA " episode. Yet these three episodes are indispensable to the total image of Mexico which Eisenstein intended to project. They are as vital to the sum-image of the land as are the opening and closing episodes of " POTEMKIN " to the total vision projected in that picture. The episode called " TEHUANTEPEC " presents an ideal image of the tropical paradise of Mexico, integral Communism, a significant contrast to the hard, brutal life of the northern maguey plains. ..." FIESTA " contains the bull-fight sequences, combined with a typical Eisenstein satire on the bourgeoisie of Mexico City. "SOLDADERA" depicts the revolutionary movement of 1910, one of the bloodiest episodes in the long history of the land of the Aztecs. . . . These three episodes are missing from the release version of Eisenstein's film. The release version is therefore incomplete, and, because of its wholesale omissions, it fails to represent Eisenstein's original conception. III. All the material dealing with the evolution, through countless ages, of the Mayan conception of death, traced to its decadent manifestations in present-day Mexico, is missing from the Sinclair-Lesser version. Due to his profound ignorance of the meaning and value of these scenes, Lesser eliminated