Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Page scan 00034 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 #:
00034
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 the memory of "Mons". For it would be so much easier to praise a film just because it is English, but that is not the way to re-establish the industry on any kind of commercial or intellectual basis. Perhaps in time we shall make a film that combines the suspense of "The Emden" with the swiftness and claritj^ of " The Big Parade", and without the concession to sentimentality^ and supposed crowd-desire, that crop up here and there in both these films. But this will not be until we have intelligent directors, camera men trained to use their equipment as the German and American photographer is trained, and until the idea is scrapped as utterly as worn-out machinery, that a film, because it is "English" must be praised. Bryher. THE CINEMA AND THE CLASSICS I BEAUTY I suppose we might begin rhetorically by asking, what is the cinema, what are the classics ? For I don't in my heart believe one out of ten of us high-brow intellectuals, Golders 22