Close Up (Jan-Jun 1928)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jan-Jun 1928
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00040
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 28, 2022
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CLOSE UP many times that I lost count ; The Birth of a Nation, from which I remember the scene that was cut to please the negro population of Dorchester ; and Carmen, of which I saw the first night at the Boston Opera House. I do not remember the picture at all, probably because I put all my impressions into a review I wrote that night, but I do most vividly remember watching Geraldine Farrar, who was watching the picture. Her cloak was peacock green and her face was a very smooth and lovely yellow. I resent the absence of color in the movies. x\nd I detest colored photographs. More recently I have lived two years in a very small town about the size of Frankfort, and have seen a number of very bad movies, including John Barrymore's unnecessarily cruel and horrible mangling of Mobie Dick, and a very bad English film. During this film I took several naps, in spite of the lady at the untuned piano. Every time I opened my eyes I saw the same thing : an empty room, different room each time ; somebody opened a door and came in ; close up of a man ; close up of a woman ; different man and woman each time ; same film ; he made love to her because she was some one else's wife ; I fell asleep. There was a little variety introduced when they registered wealth by means of decking one of the wriggling women in a slinky gown and much bad jewelry and walking her down a staircase in what appeared to be a particularly vulgar and baroque hotel but was supposed to be The house of the rich man. I believe an aeroplane was alleged to have fallen into the vicar's garden, and somebody got run over by a motor. Thus saving one virtue at least. 24