Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Nov 1927
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00056
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:
August 29, 2022
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CLOSE UP in this way ? Ben Hur had some excellent photography of racing horses, but there again, they were simply galloping ; one could hardly say they were given their "due". Some wild horse films have, it is true, been done, and better than any other animal films, though inclined to suffer under this business of hanging humian, instead of equine, understanding upon them. Much could be done if facial expressions were studied. The donkey, the camel, the monkey, each of these registers definite moods. And there has been far too much of that very unpleasant slapstick stunt of causing small creatures, mice, frogs, crabs, etc. to climb down peoples' backs, or up their legs, or run loose in trains. Somehow this idea goes on and on and on, and it is a little disgusting. So much better in such films to introduce something simply bizarre, porcupines, the Australian w^ombat, the capybara, or South American Giant Guineapig. Opossums might also be effective done in the right way. The wild boar is probably too difficult to tame, but he looks extrem.ely effective, and it would be new. The effects could be easily managed with "trick" photography. Wolves are seldom used, being rather more dangerous than might be supposed. I did not see The Miracle of the Wolves, but would have been very interested to do so if real wolves were used. (Alsatian wolf-hounds. Ed.) Some of the best pic-^ tures of animals taken are of stampedes, one being a bison stampede in a film with Jack Holt. Horse and cow stampedes 44