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 #:
00045
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CLOSE UP down the admiring Fay ; follows the pursuit of the girl, a harpist in a beer garden, by the man who is a prince in the most conventional circles. The apple blossoms, which will upset so many, the little Viennese heroine has arranged around herself. In Paul Leni's The Last Warnings the grotesque characters were projected from the ominous shadow background; but in Stroheim's picture the heroine wills the scenery into being. She is no poet, she cannot conjure up the maidens of the Blue Danube whom she longs to see, but she can visualize the obvious apple blossoms. One of the performances of the year goes to Zazu Pitts, who as ever manages to carry off the histrionic laurels on being given the opportunity. She has the tiny part, in the massacred version, as the heiress whom Stroheim will marrv for her money. She is like a holy candle; a princess with' a limp. Is it too flippant to say that a holy candle should not walk ? In relation to the year's development of colour it is interesting to record that in the coloured sequence of this picture the shadows which moulded become just another colour. Stroheim produces so few pictures that I am not in a position to ignore anything I may be fortunate enough to see. Month after month Close Up has dealt conscientiously with the magnificent new Russian films, there is no need in this short review to repeat; but the importance of The Wedding March is that so many more people will have a chance to see it than Alexandra Chochlova's new comedy. Although the Avenue Pavilion has done its best to make the film life of 27