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 #:
000238
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:
August 29, 2022
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CLOSE UP often than not by some quite inept and naive statement flashed on informatively just where it least is needed. Which leads one to the point that are so many subtitles necessary ? Supposing oneself to be sitting say in a Russian cinem-a and not knowing a word of the language, would not one more or less comprehend the entire story, and again, is it not possible that by not comprehending, we have formed our own conclusions, and seen miore than was intended ? In illustration of which may I enquire if we have not all experienced a feeUng of irritation or surprise at the inadequacy of many subtitles, which even in their native language are so often if not illiterate and cramping, inferior to the general tone of the picture ? In the Freudian film recently shown in London, the photographic dream-S3Tiibohsm was in the nature of a triumph, but the diagnosis of the psycho-analyst flashed on in sub-titles, was pitiful, and probably neutralised any good the film might otherwise have done to the cause of psycho-anah^sis. Yet probably in the original version this had, if not aptness, at least a certain pathological value. Mrs. W. G. Drysdale, London, W. i. (An article by Miss Dorothy Richardson on Captions appears on page 52.) NAUSEOUS "CLOSE-UPS" Assuming that the vast majority of cinema frequenters desire to be entertained in an intellectual and amusing manner, it is somewhat difficult to comprehend, why there are 72