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 #:
00050
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 swinging too, roundabouts from below. Clever angles — the audience say'4 as good as Vauedville" That is what he wanted. But why "as good" ? Why not, please, different ? Never mind. We don't want originality for its own sake. Next comes a boxing booth. How popular boxing is. Knock-out Reilly, Battling Butler, The Patent Leather Kid, Rough House Rosie. These things go in cycles. We don't want originality (for its own sake) — and we don't get it, even for art's. Art, old boy is long, and films are business, and must be quick. What else has Mr. Hitchcock done ? He has chosen for his evenly matched boxers one expert and one novice. This whim (was it really necessity ?) resulted in dainty paragraphs extolling his cleverness ; for the novice fought, under guidance, in slow motion, which was then speeded up. Who'd have thought it ? Who'd have thought the camera could alter his footwork or make his body look anything but flabby and untrained, so that we never felt he was a match for Carl Brisson ? We are a sporting race and this is how we stage a big fight. It is not good enough. The cinema is cutting its own throat if it first accustoms us to Tunney-Dempsey fights and then gives us bad fakes. The old device, so popular in bullfights, was better, — doubles in the distance, with occasional separate close-ups. Yet, why not drop mock representation and, greatly daring, try expressionism ? That's what you did with the early fair-scenes, though I don't believe you knew it. Then, for the girl, the director had Lilian Hall Davis, an 34