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 #:
000212
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Early Cinema, Global Cinema, and Switzerland
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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CLOSJ^ UP of this form of pleasure-getting by the adult man or woman, the adult — and here we are face to face with the problem : is the adult's fare necessarily nourishment for the child ? The idea of the child as the "httle man" — the adult in a backward stage — has long been abandoned by all w^ho can observe and judge, and the profounder aspects of mind which the psychology of the unconscious has revealed must convince us that the child has its own destiny to fulfil, and if it misses essential phases of childhood-development it will inevitably suffer loss, and may be, serious disharmony, when adult. The truth grasped by the Jesuits, namely, that the early years are all-important in shaping character-trends, has been so amply reinforced by modern science that we are forced to value educational methods and agencies according as they help or hinder the developing mind : yet it is notable that such a valuation has hardly been considered by the enthusiasts, educational and "lay", who wholeheartedly welcome the Cinema for educational usage. Perhaps the first problem is to understand the meaning of the demand for the Cinema-entertainment, to what this is a reaction. Some answer is afforded by study of adult modern communities in which we see a widespread demand for easy and effortless entertainment characterized by incessant variety and sensationalism. The vastly popular variety entertainment, the cabaret show, the jazzband, the modem dance, much of the drama of the moment, pictorial art and literature, and, above all, the contemporary Press bear the characteristics already mentioned. In the individual we can 46