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 #:
000510
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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I CLOSE UP comes symbolism almost. You feel de Mille is saying you crucify the thing you need most. And here, at last, is appreciation of the nuances of courage and suffering. The situation in itself, of course, is graphic, as a situation, and applies now as then. But de Mille certainly rammed his points home. The innovator is always to be feared and hated, whereas the murderer we can more or less cope with. The Crucifixion was a little artificial, but again sincere, and the three figures on the hill with the crowd below (said to have been composed from Renaissance paintings) formed a dramatic and forceful composition. The effect of the figure nailed to the cross was so well done that the illusion was rather shattered by the realisation that here was an actor who must be supremely uncomfortable. The earthquake was what csome will call "cardboardy". But the effect of precipices grinding on each other seemed to me good. The resurrection was simply sketched in, but it served the same purpose as the epilogue to St. Joan, to show that Christ only began really with his death. Really it is a bad film, and an undistinguished film, but it is a sincere film, and a film with moments of beauty photographically and dramatically and spiritually. It did not seem to me very perturbing that no actor can convincingly appear like the Christ, or impersonate the Christ. Neither did it seem to me — as some have said — blasphemous. In parts it was absurd, and the beginning was undignified. The crowd scenes were not good except occasionally. There was a dreadful Uttle boy — Mark. The raising of Lazarus was a little dour, and seemed the cheapest hocus pocus. As 68