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 #:
000455
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 drunk. For this scene one hundred and twenty Russian officers, including seven generals came in their ov/n uniforms, working for twelve marks a day. Pabst supplied vodka and women, waited, and then calmly photographed. Not one of these scenes is offensive in any way, and every one is strong and sonorous, so that the effect on the film itself is like some deep, vital root. But it is on account of this strength and the uncompromising treatment and the exquisite photography of those scenes that they will probably have to suffer. We meet Fritz Rasp first, in a room apart from the orgy, lolhng, in some way a complete, congenital scoundrel. The suggestion of unpleasantness, the repellant atmosphere, come across instantly ; and yet you feel at the same time, here is a man vvho is not giving way to this lower instincts, but being what he is because he is what he is. Throughout the film masterly acting and masterly directing carried on this impression ; that whatever crime and depravity he was capable of, he was being completely himself, with a kind of genius and sheer contempt for his fellow creatures. Next emerges Uno Henning, a young Swedish actor, another discovery of Pabst. This was his first picture in Germany, and as long as it is by no means his last we shall be satisfied. There was objection again to the fact that he was not ''well known". It did not seem to matter that here was not only an ideal type for the part, but a rare nordic quaUty of intellect and personal charm that you could no more discount than you could discount a Veidt or — in his own way — a Krauss, or the Garbo that was. Of course it is as well to 21