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 #:
000508
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 faces with the usual courtesy of cinematic antiquity. They vie for smiles from Jacqueline, whose eyes you feel are aching from trying to appear beetling. She pushes their faces. A Hollyw^ood, tame leopard roams placidly round. Jacqueline iuops on her chariot and sweeps off into the noonday heat. By this time it seemed quite natural to be contemplating a furtive exit. Then a blind child emerges, and we realise we are about to meet the King of Kings. We do. Beyond the fact that Mr Warner sat with an arc lamp just behind him to give that effect f silver lining usually associated with heroine's hair, he looked grave, and dignified, and more spiritual than most paintings of the Lord. Ernest Torrence and Joseph Shildkraut as Judas and some more, in alien garments, stand about. The blind child is made to see. Then in bursts Mary Madgalen, decolletage, corkscrew curls and all. She says the usual tush and pish. Then she begins to get scared, or a little uncertain (you can't easily tell which from her acting) so saj's tush and pish again with more vehemence. Soon however (much business with silver lining and gauzy close ups) a conflict with her better self begins. The usual superimposed symbolic figures of Temptation maul at her. She begins to look sick. Then she too is healed. Then, let me see, what happens next ? The King of Kings goes through a rigmarole of raising the dead, heahng the sick, etc. You see him being the Daily Help (almost from an Agency) of anybody who runs after him. You could not gather for a moment that he hai any mission more divine than a panel doctor has. Except of course for the silver lining. But Warner was defi 66