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 #:
00044
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 good moral ! ... On the other hand Thou Shalt Not was unforgettable, the most rewarding picture of this July to July year. America had plenty of groomed features like Manhattan Cocktaily with wonderful Lilian Tashman whom many think to be the best thing that has come out of Hollywood ; and plenty of poverty stricken affairs like Bringing Up Father. All the American fan papers have continued to flourish ; reproductions of Miss Letty Lorne in a few beads and captions underneath saying that Letty is just a nice, shy. old-fashioned girl ! I must mention Close Up's efforts to grapple with the problem of censorship, a problem inevitablv associated w^ith Von Stroheim, and editing, and re-editing. People approached me at the Plaza, with mournful faces, and reminded me how much had been cut from the Stroheim masterpiece, and that I really could not, and should not, judge it in its existing condition. However, I was impressed by the fragments; by the way, the atmosphere of Vienna was subtly re-created by a cigar in the lips of powderedhaired, supercilious Maude George . . . Face half hidden by military cockade Von Stroheim considers the difficulties of his position ; sitting upright on a nervous horse is nothing to the problems of debt that neither father nor mother will meet. Pushing back his hat — his passion he cannot conceal by outward dignity of cockade — Mathew Betz is proprieting to Fay Wray who wants only to see the procession, that is until she notices Von Stroheim. Like so many of the good new American pictures (example The Crowd) the story is subjective. Von's horse knocks 2()