Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000148 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 #:
000148
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 Kowal-Samborski is most attractive in his role of the voung peasant. But it is over-melodramatic. Its propaganda fails because the oppressors in this case are simply pathological cases, and would be in any circumstances or conditions. Surely a wealthy land-owner, requested for land to farm from two of his serfs, would be enough of a business man to sav to himself here are two strong, capable and enthusiastic young people. They wall do good work with their land, and I will have good rent. Instead of w^hich he reluctantlv rents them barren soil full of stones. That is what I call bad technique. We do not feel that this man is much more than a fool, certainly not worthy of the propaganda made against him. In the beginning, also, Marie (Anna Sten) was seen definitely employed in the fields, and Jacob (Kowal-Samborski), returning from military service, was greeted by all his fellow peasants. If these two were so well known, it would not have been difficult for them to find employment in the fields again instead of Marie having to go as nurse to the house of the land-owner miles away. There were lovely moments between the young wife and her husband, and the interiors of the brothel were straight, strong and unsentimental. But this is less good than some of the other films. It is not marked with the same intellectualitv and freedom from conventional dramatic impasse as are the others. That is the enthralling thing about such films as Mother, Das Dorf Der Siinde, Ten Days. There is none of the old tired-to-death plot and counter-plot of the average scenario. One could not say quite the same of such Russian films (distinguished more for their treatment) as Ivan the Terrible, The Postmaster, and that other barren example of boredom, Taras Biilha; or even of m