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 #:
000258
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 VP show" copy. What manner of robbery is this, for the public are being cheated of fifty per cent of the art in the film ? The exhibitors are not buying what they have been shown — that was the "trade show" copy ! Then comes the first run in London. Once again important. How long do you think a big London house uses a copy of a film ? About a week, and then it is changed. What happens to the copies no longer good enough for London, are they thrown away or foisted on the provinces ? Finally the film reaches the general public. What matter now ? The money has been paid. The "tiade show" copy was printed by hand, apart from various sequences printed on coloured base which are done in the "works". (Blue base, for instance, is considered by most experts to be too dense for hand printing.) The general release copies are printed mechanically ; turned out like any standardized commercial product which indeed they are. "Time is money" ; admonish the cinema magnates. Film should be dried at a temperature of about seventy degrees, otherwise the particles do not have a chance to reform and the film suffers from "grain" (You know that rain effect ?) Grain ? Heat the drying rooms twice as strongly, and revolve the drums twice as fast and we will make twice as much money ! Imagine just for a minute that you and I were drying film. We would put the film on the drums, revolve them rapidly to shake off all the water, turn off the heat and leave the film to dry itself over nighx. There would be no grain, but a 12