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 #:
00091
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 not knowing why not, and it is nobodys' fault except the cinemas'. When one thinks of the Little Annie Roonies and Little Lord Faiintleroys one almost says oneself Lve nothing to say. Mary Pickford in white socks and a tucked dress hardly covering her thighs is a symbol of niceness. Mary^ Pickford in black velvet knickers and a lace collar is the spirit of childhood. She is nice, she is a nice woman, she is a good w^oman. People say that, and T for one am sure they are right. But what I mean is why is this sort of thing swallowed ? Because Mary is driving the serf idea back of civilization down serf throats. Mary is pretending that Human Sparrows, Little Annie Roonies, are something to do with truth and beauty and art. She is playing safe with safe values, there is no threat or danger in her innocence, it is not even a sugar coated pill. It is a mere lolhpop for the mob to comfortably munch. And then people that do not greatly matter in themselves get to believing in her, or not her so much as the thing she stands for, and that is where cinematography begins and ends for them. Other people get to believing in say Xita Xaldi, or Pola Negri. And so it comes back, Nita Xaldi is on at the Grand, Pola Xegri is on at the Bijou. The whole feeling in this belongs to the loio period. The words nice, nasty, morbid, vulgar, dirty, clean, are not words merely, but complete attitudes of mind, complete summaries coded in 1910 language. That is how the film convention has come about, a convention of curious subtleties. The habitue recognises them. Mae Alurray coming into a room II