Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00025
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 very remoteness from his own physical experience, enchants him is not enough reason for him to mistake that enchantment for the complete and sole experience of cinema. If he really loves the film, he will not show it by talk upon the influence of the movie on customs, such as gum-chewing, to which he is an addict, or physical gestures after James Murray or George Bancroft. Nor will he show it by damning the French girl for Joan Crawford or Louise Brooks. Nor by an ignorance of the past of the American film, which he so much idolizes. Nor by limiting motion to antic, action, speed. Nor by finding Victor MacLaglen a great artist, whereas that lucky Irishman has a constant (hence non-artistic) personality no matter what the film. Nor by denying the meritorious Catherine Hessling because she casually recalls Mae Murray. He will stop chattering and go to vrork. He will discipline himself and question his enthusiasms, or at least examine them to know where to put them. AND HE WILL STUDY THE FRENCH INTELLIGENCE IN ITS EXPRESSION IN THE FRENCH FILM, whether he likes its makers or not. His head is now stuffed with American idioms, but he will need to be re-born an American before he will make an integral film of them. The Frenchman remains a provincial all his life. To remain a provincial is no limitation to an artist. The Frenchman's Frenchness has been one of the chief reasons for his cuhural and aesthetic survival amid influences that should have long destroyed or reduced him. He creates within his own boundaries. Nowhere is this condition more apprehendable than in the cinema. The French mind shows itself constantly in the success and the failure. 15