Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Page scan 00026 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Nov 1927
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00026
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:
June 20, 2024
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CLOSE UP ality, no deliberate pulling at heart strings, one was left to watch, one saw each pitiful side of the question as one does. * * * But films like this are rare. Nju might not please the English. I saw it in Vienna this spring, four years old, and had to visit the theatre twice before there was a seat. Too rare. It is just possible that D. W. Griffith and mj'self are talking the same language when we both say the hope of the cinema lies with the amateur. I don't imagine we are. Griffith is frightfulty right in some things, but quite undistinguished. Occasionally a transcendental effect, ver\' well done, but no sort of offering to sheer mind. Griffith, however, has been quoted in connection with amateur movie competitions in a very excellent movie paper, but one not dealing with uplift ! So we can more or less discount it, since amateurs with an eye to competition in that paper wdll again do sub-HoUpvood stuff, and the best imitation gets the prize. Besides, it is always a bad incentive, this business of prizes. Since it sells cameras, it brings a different appreciation of sheer photographic effects, it brings one up against totalh^ unforeseen difficulties of technique, and sets the ball of individual effort rolling, but it means in the long run the ruling out of the best. Again it is the competent commonplace that will set the pace. It has to be the film for the film's sake. 14