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 #:
000203
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 famous Baldwin may not be the Conrad Veidt of The Hands of Orlac, or Nju. I have seen only this film. But I don't want to see another Conrad Veidt if it must abuse my mind of this one. The story is obvious. The Enghsh literary critical papers accompany their "still" of the famous mirror scene with some such explanatory blurb : this is the Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of German legend. Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, iiow apt, certainly. Doctor Jekyll however shuddered in horror at the sodden parody of himself that Hyde presented. This Jekyll and Hyde are ahke elegant, alike poised, ahke at home in the world of fact and in the supernatural. For by a magnificent trick of sustained camera magic we have Baldvv^in the famous fencer student selling his shadow, rather his brave re flection to the little obvious Italian magician of the first reel. The little Punchinello obtains it, by a trick ; gold poured and poured Danae shower, upon the bare scrubbed table of the student's attic, "for something in his room". The student has lifted his magnificent blade ruefully and cynicalty has decided (as that is the onty object worth a sou in the bare attic) to be done with it. It is not that blade that our friend Punchinello's after. He beckons with his obvious buffoon gesture toward the mirror. Baldwin regards (in its polished surface) the face of Baldwin. Tall, alert, with that panther grace, like some exquisite lean runner from an archaic Delphic frieze, Baldwin regards Baldwin. It is true there should be Baldwin upon Baldwin, Veidt upon Veidt, elegantly pursuing (across some marble entablature) Baldwin upon stripped Baldwin, 37