Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Page scan 00033 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Nov 1927
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00033
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:
June 20, 2024
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CLOSE UP to a repetition of effects far more than war on land. The director too, seemed not to know whether to drag in a weak story or to trust to "The Emden" itself, dashing from captured ship to ship towaxds its eventual fate. Again the first part was the best, the feeling of suspense before the declaration of war, the machinery blurring into the excitement and again the suspense of the sailors, the swift leaving of the ship from the Eastern harbour out to open sea. One cannot help feeling a sudden curious personal sensation of shock as the first English boat is captured and the captured sailors give away (not thinking thej^ are being watched) the secret of the convoy following them on their course. But the battle at the end, very realistic, the broken m.achinery, corpses, fragments of bodies, builds up too heavy and monotonous a picture for the mind to retain a sharp enough impression of tragedy. Somewhere about the fourth reel from sheer repetition, the brain stopped recording. There was the heavy growling weight of resentment and despair behind it, not the constructive criticism of those early bits of "The Big Parade", that war is a foolishness made by mobhysteria. The film as shown in Switzerland howe"\'^er may have been edited for possible English eyes — it was advertised as showing "the heroism of English and German sailors" ! It would be interesting to see it again in Germany, as some sections seemed so obviously and crudeh' cut. I regret that I have not had opportunitj^ so far to see " Roses of Picardy" and "What Price Glory" though both in their jliterary form are familiar. I should like something to take away 21