Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000178 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 #:
000178
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 If you are among those sensitive people whose mental ears catch the faintest Sounds of life as a story is projected teUinglv on the screen, you will not need the raucous howls of the talking films. Let us hope you will never have them thrust upon you. ' A JOKE BEHIND THE SCENES O. B. But/' they say, " how interesting for you. So many amusing things must happen behind the scenes." It is vain to tell them that famous comedians do not fall off ladders in between scenes just to amuse the studio staff, in fact, the studio staff is generally coerced into doubling for fan^ous comedians when the script calls on them to fall off ladders. Why watching the wheels go round should be an hilarious occupation, I don't know. Fascinating, certainly. Yet they insist that life behind the scenes is a mixture of occasional thrill and perpetual laughter. Except, of course, the younger ones, who say : Oh ! how wonderful ! You have met Mr. X or Miss Y, and are they really so divine?** If a brother artist acquires too generous a figure for juvenile parts, that is an irresistible behind-the-scenes jest ; and a brother technician cannot stop chuckling when he remembers that the other chap is only getting half the salary ! Customary manifestations of ambition, slightly gone to seed, and the 32