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 #:
000311
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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CLOSE UP 293 book. One reads a treatise on the Quantum Theory and has the urge to formulate a new theory of cutting. There is scenario force in the change from Einstein's world of equilibrium, through Lemaitre's local stagnation of energy, to de Sitter's universe. From book to movie as it were by Lorentz's transformation ! But no relative reason need be given for the first book on the quarter's list. When would-be directors ask Francis Bruguiere if there are helpful books which they could study, he advises Watkins' manual of Photography. Some aspirants do go as far as getting this excellent work from the Public Library : has one read it ? Yet, qualified work with the hand camera is the best apprenticeship the aspirant can give himself. Photography Without Failures (Routledge, 2/6) has taken every excuse from the lazy. Usual faults of negative and print are classified in a beginner's pictorial A. B.C. by a series of illustrations. For instance, a print from a soft negative is reproduced on soft paper ; then a print from the same negative on normal paper ; then a print from the same negative on vigorous paper. The book, indeed, is so simple and explanatory that it is hard to remember that this effective method is presented for the first time. [BRACKETS FOR DIALOGUE AS BOOK REVIEW. The Home Cinema, by J. P. Lawrie (Chapman & Hall. 3/6). Herbert Jones. " Mr. Rin Tin Can and Mr. Rin Tin Can't." O.B. " Mr. Lawrie says that amateurs can even make talkies. Tell the players to perform a set drama of not more than two hundred feet. In screening, hide the players behind a curtain and speak their lines off. Place a loud speaker conspicuously before the screen and a loudly humming electric fan . . ! ! " H.J. " WOW ! But I think I could suggest some other filmettes than these. What about the milkman delivering bottles while a young couple advance to ask, ' What time does it get dark round here ? ' " O.B. " There's a Bibliography at the back of the book. Publishers' names and addresses aren't given. And it says that Close Up is a shilling monthly." H.J. " Our agent will call I "] An Objectivists Anthology, by Louis Zukofsky (Bruce Humphries, Boston. 9/-), belongs to the province of the cineaste because of Mr. Zukofsky 's manifesto on poetry :