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 #:
000447
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 man who won't use his brain feel righteous while venting ugly and destructive sentiment. How useless to deny that we shall hear again on this account "Those brutal Germans ! " Perhaps it can't be helped. Men still love war. I mean there are thousands who went through the last who clamour for the next. These are often highly efficient in some profession or trade and pass as peace-loving citizens. Danger, therefore, is in waking mob-hysteria, a madness that will cause nations to scream equally bhndly and without feeling either for or against war. At Hoppla Wir Lehen for instance, a Red play combined wdth film, now running in Berlin, every time an anti-war sentiment or anti-militaristic gesture takes place there are whoops and roars of applause ; a completely febrile, un-seeing gush, exactly the same thing only the other way round that made decent men and women into wholesale slaughterers. And there is not much good in that. To dish up the Cavell story by way of pandering to misdirected pity and even more misdirected indignation is about as commendable as admitting a smallpox patient into a theatre full of unvaccinated pleasure-seekers. On the other hand The King of Kings may possibly be prohibited. It is not dangerous to depict the Christ, but bad form. If only there never had been such a thing as form and only just such a little commonsense instead ! * * ❖ Well, so it is. So with censoring. So with cutting. Never mind danger but do mind form. I mean good form and bad 13