Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Page scan 000234 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 #:
000234
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CLOSE UP And with the question of British Films, as denned by the Fillums Bill, comes a wave of strong feehng. This business of foreign stars. I feel I must go back and quote from the British Press, which says there can be no genuine British film industry and no raising of the standard of the screen so long as the dominance of foreign ''stars'' continues. Also that if the Act had excluded them from British Films, or even set a term to the period during which they might be employed, it would have taken at least one step tow^ards a higher prestige that though it may help a few men to make money it will do nothing to give the public better entertainment. From which we gather that a foreigner debases a film, annihilates art and fails to entertain the pubhc, and that artists outside their own country cease to be artists and become vaguely criminal or atrocious. But we, vv^ho live beneath the Union Jack, w^hat would happen to our sense of fair play and justice if foreigners stood up and uttered the same pronouncements against our stars ? MAE MURRAY APPRECIATED Now then Hollywood, come off it ! If you can't be appreciative be gallant. Why ''Auntie Mae'' ? Why all this talk about kindly camera-men and misty close-ups ? I don't care what you say, Mae Murray is worth a dozen of your namby-pamby new born stars. And one gets more kick out of her than out of any of your several hundred lady-like per 68