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 #:
00052
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 That same week I wandered into the office of a lad}' of the press : a certain Miss Louella Parsons, Movie Chatter reporter for the Hearst chain of newspapers. I told her about a storv^ I had for Greta Garbo, and two days later I found that I was an "ambitious writer with more courage than common-sense" in coming to Holh^vood on "spec". She told me in great confidence that Pola Negri lived at the swagger Ambassador Hotel, a fact known to everyone in Los Angeles. I next went down to Metro-Goldwyn at Culver City. There I got in without a letter. Perhaps my very English accent helped. Yes, they were looking for stories for Miss Garbo. Send something in. Intermission for starvation act. Then I sat down and wrote in about thirt}' pages a detailed story suitable for the talents of Greta Garbo before the dud> of Hollywood got hold of her. (I had onh seen her in one film : Joyless Street, and was completely ignorant of her artistic "ruin"). This time, at Metro-Goldwyn, I w^as shunted off on to a certain Mr. Harris. Before I had made two steps into his office he had decided that I was a useless "high-brow", and began telling me w^hat was the trouble with such fellows as myself. Also, was m.}^ story a "costume" story, for, so said Mr. Harris, "the public doesn't want costume stories". As a matter of fact Metro was on the point of producing a Baroness Orczy story of the i6th. century. I informed him that my story was by no means a high-brow affair, that it was merely a modern re-hash of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", the most famous love story in the world. But this did 28