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 #:
000312
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, and Early 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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294 CLOSE UP An objective — rays of the object brought to a focus, An objective — nature as a creator — desire for what is objectively perfect. The poems don't come off because they are too long in the sense that some lines could be left out : no modern poem should be a long poem in the sense that it carries extra luggage. What can be written out in prose isn't the poem. But it is a book for the cineaste to buy for the short works and for the Mary Butts poem which, although it seems to have been created apart from Mr. Zukofsky's programme, is a lovely thing to have around. " Still, the fourth man must be powerful enough to turn ugly, smokeinfested London into a Paradisal city, with golden radiances circling around." Thus thinks the undergraduate hero of The Magnificent, by Terence Greenidge (The Fortune Press. 7/6), as he trains into Saint Eustace. He seeks work in a film agent's office and falls electricaUy for a juvenile he meets in the cloakroom. But the juvenile frequents the more profitable company of a rich producer. All for love's sake, the juvenile allows himself an affair on the side with an extra lady. The hero, without losing his admiration for the juvenile, also falls for the extra dame. . . . Here are the psychological relationships which Leontine Sagan wished fruitlessly to introduce into Men of Tomorrow. So we turn back to Photography Without Failures to look at the negatives and to wonder if any Hollywood inventor thought of making a special grainy film for scenes in the rain ! OSWELL BLAKESTON. PERIODICALS. " The film is every day invading the realms where once it was regarded askance. The July issue of The Bookman is one of the latest to accord it entry to its pages, and Chaliapin, Jean Cocteau, Oliver Baldwin, Oswell Blakeston, and others are discussing it from various viewpoints." (Kinematograph Weekly. July 6th). The July issue of The Bookman, therefore, will commend itself to cineastes. Readers of Close Up are seekers of discriminating entertainment and should be interested to hear of the production of the fourth number of Soma. Among those who have contributed to the first four numbers of this remarkable magazine are such authors and artists as : T. F. Powys, James Hanley, Rhys Davies, L. A. Pavey, Oswell Blakeston, Pearl Binder, Mary Butts. Soma is published by K. S. Bhat, 61 Southwark Park Road, London, S.E.16, in an edition of 500 copies, of which 400 are for sale at 7/6 each ; also there is a signed edition of 50 copies on Vellum of which 30 are for sale at 21/ each. The editions are issued in attractive book format.