Close Up
Jul-Dec 1929
- Title:
- Close Up
- Date:
- Jul-Dec 1929
- Author:
- Kenneth Macpherson, ed.
- Publisher:
- Pool
- Volume:
- 5
- Language:
- eng
- Subjects:
- Film Theory, Motion Pictures
- Collection:
- Global Cinema
- Format:
- Periodicals
- Source:
- Print
- Contributor:
- 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