Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000179 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 #:
000179
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 universal love of scandal, which must be made at anv cost ; these are intimate little absurdities which cannot be flavoured by anyone not in the know\ Esoteric witticisms about the mistakes and misfortunes of others. Poor old So-and-so, the wretched camera man, took such and such a scene with a cap on his lens ! Little knots of stage hands gather in corners of the studio and repeat the story with appreciative roars of laughter. We are simple folk and our humour is fittingly rudimentary, not at all the sort of thing that is fashioned for the delectation of outsiders ; so to satisfv the curiositv of the many I have chosen some classical jokes of the cinema world. First of all there are the memories of the early days of the industry. Incredible blunders, unbelieveable gaucheries^ fatuities : Memories w^hich go back to the days when a camera w^as cranked by two niggers turning the wheels of a tandem I Years and years ago, and this happened. A well-known figure in the artistic world was engaged to direct a picture. He talked a lot about composition and d^cor, and with a few pointed insinuations mortallv offended the cameraman, who, in revenge, refused to allow^ him to look through the camera. Not till tlie middle of the picture did the director get a chance of seeing the set in the view finder. The cameraman was called away for a few minutes, and the director seized his opportunity, then, groaning in the true melodramatic manner, he paced up and down, uttering inartistic imprecations. You have done this on purpose. You w^ant to ruin me. What is the matter? Whv, the whole picture is upside down!" 33