Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Page scan 00087 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 #:
00087
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 want its Lya de Putti, its Tom Mix, its May McAvo}^ regardless of the film in which they happen to appear. Tom Mix is on at the Royal. Good enough, let us go to the Royal, no more question, nothing else to worry about. Clara Bow is on at the Biograph, We must go. And when it is bad we can chatter or go to sleep or make love. You will never get more than fifty per cent on j'our side in any cause, so that leaves thirt}^ to win, and, there is not much doubt about it, they can be won. Out of this thirty comes the tv/enty that apologises for going, says "awfully absurd, sheer waste of time" but creeps in as often as possible, swallowing films whole and loving them if the truth were known. The ten per cent is split into those who go to the good films (e. g. Ben Hur, The Big Parade, The Ten Commandments) those who go for rest and something to talk about, and those who go because they can lose themselves in a cinema as they cannot lose them.selves in a theatre. These are all healthy prey, and will come to the fold in time. They are the people who have open minds, who are ready to absorb ideas, providing the ideas are spread out in front of them. When better things are ready they will accept them naturalty, just as the}^ accepted lifts in place of stairs, and escalators in place of lifts. They would not have invented lifts or escalators themselves, but when the thing was done, thej^ approved and used them. So with films. When ardent forerunners have brandished their banners sufficiently and the thing is before their eyes they will take to good films as naturally as they took to bad ones. 7