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 #:
000440
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
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CLOSE UP tice ? Well, it is quite beyond argument, you can see how unspeakable, incredible and fantastic such procedure would be. You might even call me mad for suggesting it. What an outcry when anything is remotely attempted in this way, what societies for protection of rights exist, how safe you are if you write or paint, compose or carve. Yet (yes, I am sure you are there before me) men who make filmis are expected (but not asked) to suffer the bitterest insults and undergo the deepest humiliation in respect of their creative work. Any cheap nonentit}/ in official status can at wdll work desperate havoc with beautiful work, snipping wildly in every direction. Any illiterate judgment backed by official scissors is openly and acknowledgedly permitted to hack its stifling prejudices across the work of genius ; genius that has spent long hours in the cutting room, perfecting, adding final touches, (as Epstein might polish lovingly or Piccasso add minute last flicks of the brush) is subjected to indignities beyond any justification. Somebody hacks a thousand feet from the middle of his film, destroying balance, destroying everything, then announces calmly "That is better". Adds perhaps a dozen filthy sub-titles to make up for and clumsily explain the mutilated continuity. Translate such procedure into terms of any of the other arts and its monstrosity hits you between the eyes. For nobody can go on any longer pretending that the film is in its new aspects on a par with the old seaside "Fun Halls" with the automatic peep shows. It was, but that is over. That attitude to the cinema should have passed with the general passing of the lath and plaster, pseudo 6