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 #:
000522
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 Film Society : Notes on the 17th Programme. 1. KGGEI.IXG : Bggeling, the pioneer of absolute films was "a man who believed fanatically in his work ; a man who spoke of art without sentimentalising over it, logically, soberly, always aware of why and wherefore". (Kurt). The Symphonie Diagonale shown here is of great interest to us. The basis of his work is line, and his patterns are mainly the varying positions on a two dimensional plane, the screen, of his one dimensional figures, in contradistinction to the patterns of Ruttmann and Richter which are usually flat two-dimensional forms moving in three dimensions. The screen is a blackboard to Bggeling and a window to Richter and Ruttmann. His more complex Symphonie Horizontal-Vertikal seems less pleasing Xo-one continues his work. 2. Richter : Richter is a prolific absolute worker, and a pioneer. This Rhythmiis is one of his least attractive works. Rhythm is essentially the quality which, as a whole, the film lacks. Perhaps the copy had been rejoined and was not in the order originally designed five years ago. It gave the effect of pieces, of which only one is striking, when the two sides, or the top and bottom, of the screen move toward one another. 3. Bir,i,Y's B1BI.E 1 91 2 : Certainly from the Golden Age. Before experience taught how easily a restrained gesture can be interpreted by the spectator. But perhaps it was necessary to gesticulate to the audiences of those days, not only the technique of film story-telling but of film story-reading advances. A Lubitsch of three years back, then a marvel of ingenious and gentle hinting, is obvious to-day. Note in this film one shot where Billy, filling the water bottles, suddenly looks up startled and runs. The savages pursue him running in front of the camera and not until the gay clothes they are wearing, which suddenly obscure the picture, recede some distance in pursuit of him, do we perceive the cause for his alarm. This could not be more neatly and dramatically composed. 4. The face ox the bar room floor : It is good, instructive, for us to see a really bad Chaplin. The essence of his art is the subduing and hiding 80