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 #:
00049
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 desired because the Capitol refused to pay £ 2000 for having it for three weeks) but the criticisms caused a number of people not ordinarily interested in films to visit this one. I know this. For there is a sincere wish on the part of the public to have a British cinema, and this word "masterpiece", which has been so enthusiastically given ot The Ring, is an instance of the wish being father to the quite honest hope, also, of the press. We Want good British films. If being British means anything, it means something that can best be expressed on the screen by British films. Certain characteristics foreigners (excuse the word) cannot hope to interpret, even though they may realise them. There is the British outlook and, whatever it thinks of it, the public prefers it to be British-made than American-mimicked. It believed that The Things That Have Made us — well, What We Are might to a certain extent give the films something they have hitherto lacked. Restraint, for instance, reason, taste possibly and tradition. It believed we should not do better what Hollywood does, but what it fails to do. So, a larger and more trusting public than usual saw The Ring. And what did it see ? A story in which a Chit of a Girl forsook her husband and her lover according as each won or lost. This was what wTe had, to tell the world. Here was the British outlook, the fresh viewpoint. But The Ring wras a 44 masterpiece", so it could not rely on its story. The direction must be very good. Let us wTatch it. What has Mr Hitchcock done ? Well, he has opened with shots of roundabouts and swings. Swings with the camera 33