Close Up (Jul-Nov 1927)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Nov 1927
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000421
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, and Early 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 have an outline knowledge of the principle of this highly individual art. His chapter on lenses is specially well and clearly written, and deserves very careful reading. The beginner must ruefully reahse that before he can go very far he must understand about lenses ; here is his opportunity. It is interestingly written, and simplified with diagrams. Focal length need no longer be a nightmare. You are given ways in which to experiment with focal lengths. You are told how to make trick pictures, streets lighted at night, ghosts, mirror reflections and images, wild beasts walking dow^n a busy city thoroughfare. How to use models is explained, as w^ell as the combination of hfe-size sets and models in one set. Much of it is, of course, merely outlined, and will leave the reader brindling with queries. Perhaps that is to the good. He will, if nothing else, reahse that there is indeed much he has to learn before he can begin to handle his camera efficiently, or with confidence as to the results of his w^ork. Value for its price. Films : Facts and Forecasts by L'Estrange Fawcett. Price I guinea. It is a pity that there is still so little hterature deahng with the films from any critical or technical point of view. Almost all the books pubhshed to date apologise for themselves, or even if they do not apologise, are not up to the minute as regards outlook and perception. There are a few completely 67