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 #:
00043
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 The circus pictures, the peep-behind-the-scenes pictures, the IT pictures, the cartoon comics. And it is still considered good showmanship to give the public an eye-full. There was that multiple exposure in Waterloo^ the exposure taking the form of a fan, each section containing ranks of period mercenaries. A good deal of time and care must have been spent to secure this elaborate Abel Gancism ; I heard the caustic suggestion that the only way to show such a shot would be on the ceiling ! And it is still considered good craftsmanship to move crowds in opposed rhythms. In the same picture outside files march upwards and inside files march downwards, and they are all supposed to be hurrying to the same battle-field ! Ufa, the fairy godmother of the cinema's childhood, who gave the cradled infant Doctor Caligari, rushed in with the over-laden Secrets of the East. Therefore to Volkoff the honour of the worst film to date, although I have no doubt that his compartriot Tourjanski runs him pretty close with Volga Volga. Then the tragedies, and we do have tragedies now-a-days and that is something. The old type was represented by Murnau's Four Devils . . . Charles Morton, an exceptionally handsome hero, falls into bad ways because he has been associating with the exceptionally unscrupulous vamp. By trade a trapeze artist, he looses his nerve w^hen aloft ; beads of sweat on his brow^ catching the light. Trust little Janet Gaynor to put everything right, even if she has to fall off a trapeze to win back Charlie for a happy marriage; and now, although he presumably indulges in the same amount of petting, he thrives on it; you see, that makes such a very 26