Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 00098 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1928
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00098
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 UR mediocre pictures like ''The Trial of Donald Westhof become interesting because good ideas are used in the long shots without fussy elaboration. The obvious conclusion is that the Continental scenarist is more fecund. In England nothing must be left to the imagination of the public. After quick cutting a faint uncertainty as to what is happ3ning is ths more pD .verfal factor in holding the attention of an audience. I wojld like to do a film in which there was only one set, the corridor in an hotel, and from the actions of my characters in the corridor suggest the dramas which were being enacted in the different rooms. Against it I am compelled to say that the subject is rather 'filmish' ; I mean there would probably be a murder in one room, adultery in another; in fact it looks a? if the idea was corrupted by too close an association with British Studios ani plot machines. At any rate it would be an exercise in imagination to visualize the inner man behind the closed doors, from a glimpse of the outer man, conscious in the corridor of the possible scrutiny of others. The first steps toward perceptional education is to abohsh the sphtting of long or medium shots. Let me give an example from a recent Continental film. A beautiful lady, of breeding and refinement, triumphs over her 'rival. We are shown a medium shot of her, too well-bred to laugh or betray the slighest exaltation ; but her maid, in the background, cannot restrain a rapturous grin. Presented in one scene it is an idea. Spilt the scene into two close-ups and it is laboured. All this is elementary compared vath the dramatic significance of the size of some shots. As I have hinted, the Bri 62