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 #:
00048
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 remain generally under the restraint of humanitarian laws and conventions. I call the moving picture world false because it does not seem to me to represent either life as it is or the inspiration and the poet's dream. I hate it, and therefore suspect that I fear it. Looking inward I try to find the danger. It is possible that prophetic Hollywood is an expression of life as people in general want it to be. There are signs that the life of the screen is appearing in real life. This may be purely imitation. Perhaps I fear that the screen shows something real, maybe the life of the future as the robots of the future will live it. God forbid. These are wild and whirling words, my lord, but you asked me for them, and now my conscience is clear. Grant Hyde Code. THE LATEST BRITISH MASTERPIECE A Swedish film called Matrimony followed The Ring at the Astoria in London. This no doubt allowed a lot of jollity about international nuptials in the trade, for The Ring, as will be seen, is British. It ran for or fortnight and received, besides hilarious publicity, unusual attention (seeing that it was a film) in the journals described as "leading". Now the run was pre-arranged (and was actually shorter than was 32