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 #:
00043
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 I saw a vexatious thing that was supposed to be a social comedy and was really an anti-social farce. The twin brothers, one vicious and one virtuous of course, were played by one man, i. e. he-fashion-plate. It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the movie camera can do this sort of thing, and that it should not. It is bad enough to have the star hog the close ups in one character, without having him inter* viewing himself in this silly bi-focal narcissistic fashion. This film tried to be artistic by having the scene go round like the hands of a clock to indicate the passage of time. It was the only thing the director seemed to have done on purpose and was in so far laudable. The yest was traditional. The Washington Post said the only distinguished acting in the film was the impersonation of a little blond gold digger such as gentlemen like by a girl named Gwen Lee, whom I suspected of being someone else whom I used to know, so perhaps I am prejudiced here also, but I agreed with the Post. It was one good bit of acting, but it might just as well have been done on the stage or in real life. The picture had no movie value. I saw Emil Jannings in the unexpurgated Berlin version of Variety and in a Workingman's Day, or some such title. I refused to see him in The way of all Flesh because I have a rooted dislike to theft and false colors of that sort. I am sure the play must have been false that paraded under Butler's title and an alleged quotation from his book. The impressive thing about the two Jannings films that I did see was the composition. For several days I had been bothered by Washington because there it seemed impossible to see 27