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 #:
000313
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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CLOSE UP 295 The Socialist Review is once again a monthly ; and, under the editorship of Rudolph Messel, is making fresh claims for our attention ; one of the most important being a serial by Upton Sinclair which was too outspoken to find refuge in the pages of any other journal. Documents 33, April-August. A monthly review. Cordier, 6, Rue Gabrielle, Brussels, 4 frs. Documents is considerably more than a good film review, complete with able criticism, articles on the film in its relation to life and thought, Film News (and film news) and beautifully reproduced stills. Less shy than are our own of appearing in the company of filmologists, writers of standing here contribute articles on literary, artistic and social subjects.. Admirable, one thinks, turning the pages and delighting, at first, in the sheer style of Documents, from its typography, which is nothing less than a benediction to the eye, to the perfection of the lay-out, comparable to the elegant arrangement of items in a French shop-window. Controlled, spacious, effective to the limit of the term, so that one is beguiled before one has read a word. And by no means prepared for the buffettings in store. If, indeed, light can be said to administer blows. For the prime characteristic of Documents is its clarity. Both in appearance and in reality. Vehement clarity. Poised above current affairs, it casts its searchlight in all directions. And states the results with an infectious brio. If, for example, you are not yet clear as to the relationship between Freud, Karl Marx, and the super-realists, if you do not yet see them as an indissoluble trinity, read Documents, particularly the May number. If, so far, you have been either bored or puzzled by the solemnities and puerilities passing themselves off as defences of super-realism, and the equally solemn and puerile attacks (sometimes relieved by lashings of amusing satire) professing to dispose of the movement, you will delight in an article in the April number, a poetic interpretation, by Guy Mangeot, of the work of the sur-realiste poet Paul Eluard. You may or may not agree with M. Carlo Suares that all the powers that be are materialists with the " mentality of ants," and that " the most formidable hurricane of history is now at hand," but if you have heard of the Nouvelle Revue Franfaise group, whose aim is to forestall the Communist Revolution in France by bringing about a synthetic revolution, whose anti-capitalism wiU not be the anti-capitalism of the Third International, and whose synthetic nature is secured by the inclusion of two Communists on what may be called the Board of Directors, you will be interested in M. Saures article on Revolutions and Revolution, dedicated to Andre Gide, in the April number.