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 #:
00051
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, and Early 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:
June 20, 2024
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CLOSE UP in an air of embarrassment. "Who do you want to see ?" -''Does he know you ?" "What^s it about ?" "You can speak to Mr. Brown on the 'phone.. here he is". iVnd one is compelled to bellow one's plea through that \\Tetched m.ediuni. If you say 3'^ou have a storj^^ for Pola Negri j^ou \dll be told to send it in to Mr. So-and-So. Often it is the stenographer— generally called ''his secretan.^'" — who answers the telephone and assures you that the "great" m_an is much too busy to see any one at all. It took me two whole days before I saw Mr. Sheldon, head of the Editorial Department of Paramount. But although he received me cordially enough he was much too immersed in some story for Bebe Daniels to pay much attention to my ideas. "WTiat have you got to offer in m.anuscript form" v/as the question. Also "Have you got any ideas suitable for Miss Negri ?" To the first question I had to answer "Nothing", and to the second I had to answer "Not at present ?" "Bring some stories in and 111 read them" was the parting cry. I left his office very depressed and gloomy (") . Upstairs, installed in Room 99 (or some such number) I found Ernest Vajda, w^ho I had met casually in Budapest. I told him of my plans, and suggested that I place several ideas before him to work on. But he said that he only dealt in his own ideas, but he would be pleased to read anything I had to offer. Otherwise he had no power in the company ; he was just a contract writer. (*) It was, however, surely very optimistic of the author to expect xesults if he had nothing to show ? Ed. 27