Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1928
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00021
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:
July 25, 2024
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CLOSE UP feet knovvledge of the character of his actors as well as to a rare aptitude for seizing the psychological aspect of human situations, without over-dramatising them^ however, and faithfully keeping in them all their artistic drive. Room is a man apart, altogether apart : his technique is derived from a new conception of cinematographic art in the sense that it accords a fundamental value to a certain serenity of rhythm and the frequent repetition of pp.uses. I was able to see Mr Room personally and here is a summary of what he was kind enough to tell me. •'We have always appreciated in the Russian cinema world, the value and force of German films, which have unfailingly been our inspiration in the realm of technique ; as for tha,t I am sure that Germany has been able during these last two or three years to realise the efforts that we have accomphshed in Russia, which have been successful in spite of the precarious means at our disposal, and able to give our fiJm-S a truly artistic form. It seems to me that the universal cause of film^s suffers actually from a sharp division, or shall we say from too accentuated a dispersal of the forces at our command. We can reasonably expect that in two or three years things will change and that certain adjustments will help sensibly the actual situation. When two private companies have the chance to film together, the results obtained surpass all the most optimistic previsions. I am ver}/ happy to have received the task, however burdened with responsibilities, of turning the first Russo-German film. For various reasons, and chiefly artistic ones, v/e deci II