Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1928
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000622
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 reversed blacks and whites when running a film in the projection room. However, in the course of a year we were supplied with a printer, and held a little celebration in honor of our first studio positive. During the time I was in Santa Barbara the use of music on the set as an aid to the actors was first introduced. And it was there at the American studio that it had its origin. A young Italian in the casting office, who had a penchant for playing the Hawaiian steel guitar, was innocently responsible for it. It happened one day that he was called over to one of the stages to play a small bit in a scene. Having his instrument with him, he beguiled himself with soft melodies while waiting on the set. The leading lady in the picture — and a lady of considerable temperament — was vSO touched with his plaintive performance as he sat there in patient waiting, that she insisted upon his going on with it during her scene before the camera. The director resented the innovation, but its good effect upon the actress's work was so marked, that the guitar player was thereafter called upon to twiddle soulful accompaniments to all of her more emotional parts. Whereupon other temperamental leading ladies, not to be slighted, also demanded musical stimulus. And with this as a beginning, studio orchestras eventually came into being as recognized adjuncts to picture making. The star system and the exploiting of notable persons on the screen got well under way during my two and a half years with the Santa Barbara company. Mary Miles Minter, Lottie Pickford, Gail Kane, Julia Day, May Allison, Lew Cody, William Russell, Douglas MacLean, Warren Kerrigen and 38