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 #:
00054
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CLOSE UP crash into the movies". So the wonderful idea is still imprisoned within my brain waiting until some person is willing to listen. Let me record one more incident. Just before I was preparing to leave the City of Dreadful Blight (Money and Sunshine) some one in New York sent me a long, personal letter of introduction to one of the biggest executives in the ^letroGoldwyn firm. At last, I thought, I shall surely get in. But not more than bis secretary's face did I see. I even went to his private house where I was practically pushed out oi the house by his wife. This ended m}^ attempt to get into the movies. Owing to the fact that I was practically penniless most of the time my troubles were more complicated than the above bare chronicle can reveal. If I had arrived with resources enough to last out about one year, or if I bad been able to get some outside position while I was attacking the central gates of the great movie studios I might have managed by about January 1929 to get a job in one of those many rooms adapting comedies for Mr. Reginald Dennj^ Although my limited financial condition kept me from wide social intercourse I met two other young men in my position. The one was a Pole, the other a Russian Jew. Their problem was not how to become a writer for the movies, but how to become producers. Both of them had been in Los iVngeles a long time without anj^ real success. The}^ vvere just waiting for something to turn up. Los Angeles is too full of dull people to make it a pleasant waiting room. 30