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 #:
000499
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 them shadows lacking coherence, in the next picture, because in the hands of another director they become either false or what they dream of being, instead of what they actually are. (The classic example of this being Greta Garbo after she left Pabsts' direction.) But how far is the intelligent minority aware to date either of the more important directors or of the nature of their work ? This is partly due to that bad transference from the theatre of featuring the actors (almost the least important element in the film) rather than the cameraman or the director. I say least important because with a good photographer or director anything may happen, the most trivial face or gesture may become of value, but if direction or photography are bad, great beauty or great talent will appear merely mediocre. Is not one reason however for this lack of knowledge the absence to date of a literature or a " bibhography " of the screen ? Isolated examples only of a director's work may come one's way. It is hard to decide whether a single film is a happy accident or a link in a chain of achievements ; whether there has been retrogression or development. It is in an effort to remedy this defect that I want to attempt some estimate of the work of G. W. Pabst, w^hose films have interested me more to date than any others I have seen. Mr Pabst formerly worked a long time for the theatre. Four years ago he decided that as far as the art of the future was concerned, the theatre had no possibility of development. Since he came to that decision (and we can imagine it was not an easy one to make) he has made six films. Unfortunately 57