Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000163 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 #:
000163
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 of good and evil. Everything changes according to time and environment. The good of yesterday may be the evil of to-day; Glancing at random over some American educational papers, 1 tind that you may take your child to Two Arabian KnightSj but you must not take him to The Kin go j Kings. Why ? Sadie Thompson is considered of " doubtful value/' but you are especially cautioned against letting him see Wings. A pictorial record by a scientific expedition to New Guinea is not for the young. (Presumably on account of the customs of the savages !) The Crowd is strong and beyond them. The Student Prince is excellent. You may even, because it is so beautiful, take them to see Garbo and Gilbert in Love. Probing behind the apparently incongruous listing, you will find that every picture that has the slightest relationship to reality is barred. The King of Kings has passages of great beauty and simplicity, but because it presents the story without any particular dogmatic coloring, we presume, it is unfit for children. Though thev will not be harmed by the vulgarities of Two Arabian K7iights. (I felt, when I saw this, that though it did not much m.atter, it was one of the few pictures to which I should prefer not to take a child.) The Student Prince will show them life as it is not and therefore is quite safe, as the prince does his duty by his father and his fatherland in the end. The Crowd, which apparently (I have not seen it yet) sets out to show the average existence of the average family, is '' too strong," and I cannot imagine why Wings should be so improper? Is it the war stuff? But IT