Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000152 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 #:
000152
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 with the subject it did and had been banned in the country of its manufacture, the feeHng was widespread that it would reaw^aken national hatreds, and something of a local publicity war waged over the propriety of showing it. The point I would make is that the very fact a motion picture could stir up the controversy Dawn created was of high value to the cinema season. One of the chief defects of our motion pictures is that they are determined to offend no one; to deal with no idea or theme w^orth taking seriously. One of their chief weaknesses is that no one ever gets excited enough to take them with much earnestness. But here was a photoplay that caused people to become indignant enough to want to fight a little. For the moment, a motion picture actually started a battle. You can't tell me that doesn't come under the head of progress. Of infinitely more importance, of course, as pure cinema, is the Russian film, The End of St. Petersburg, which reached town the evening after Dawn, and would have been shown earlier had not the State Department been somewhat in doubt about the whole matter. It will not be the purpose of this survey to tell of the magnificent cinematic values of this pictorial account of the overthrow of Russia's old regime; of its magnificent war scenes, the only real anti-war episodes in picture history ; of its amazing use of shots of inanimate objects; of its skill in making every scene count. I will only say that the film served a purpose that was of high value in tw^o directions. First, the highly charged subject matter of the film, with its frank anti-capitalist propaganda, attracted wide attention and discussion, and then, the attention having been drawn, it was riveted by the qualities of a film that 14