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 #:
000363
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Early Cinema, Global Cinema, and Switzerland
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 and deals with established things. Therefore it will not experiment. It will take a chance on investment. It has to. It does that every time a film is made, every time a new star rises, every time an old star is told "where to get off at". But it manifestly wont, and shouldn't, plunge desperately into uncharted seas. Some of us have money invested in it, and we would be highly incensed if it did. Thus it is useless to look to sheer "business" to supply artistic and experimental progress. The creative function of business is businessnot creation. Business makes its money from the successful exploitation of some commodity. Someone else has originally had to think out the commodity. That is what our job boils down to. We have to think out the commodity. If it is good enough we can be sure some business will develop out of it. In other words, if we create a lively interest in artistic, educational endeavour and development, if we stir things and people up, set up a high-tension current, "Business will develop out of it" ! If the advanced cinema groups in Europe and America were showing and advocating triste and barren examples of freakishness, there would be every reason to deplore their existence. But are they ? By no means. Turn to the list of recommended films at the back of this issue, and see whether every one is not a logical, straightforward and easily understandable story or document. Think of the kind of films that are shown at the little movie theatres : Joyless Street, Bett und Sofa, La Tragedie de la Rue, Caligari, Berlin, Prince Achmed, Rien que les Heures, The Treasure. Such 9