Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000180 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 #:
000180
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CLOSE UP Another tale is more technical, but it deserves inclusion because it happened not so long ago. An actor standing at a writing desk was told to cross to the mantelpiece, take a cigarette, and walk back to the desk. The cameraman paned with the actor, but the stage manager was sitting outside the set busily drawing up his chart for the next day's " takes When the picture was shown on the screen it was discovered that the cameraman had come off the set, for the white-coated figure of the stage manager was visible when the camera ** paned to the mantelpiece. It was an important scene in the picture, and the actor, who had finished his contract, was leaving for Germany. Nothing daunted, the ingenious cameraman took a ruler and scraped half the emulsion off the film! Everyone was content; some may even have thought it clever, an innovation, a new way of conveying an emotion. There ought to be many strange incidents to record about the actors, and those pathetic beings who dream of being actors ; but once in the studio they obey the megaphone and individualities (respectability, romance, sordidness) vanish in the crowd. I love, however, the legend of the lean director who was playing a hearty role in his own picture. He was a man of brusque disposition who rapped out orders to the actors, stepped into the set, ignored the warning signals of his staff, shot the scene, and nine times out of ten found that he had forgotten the pads to fill out his cheeks. I am afraid that the following has been elaborated, embroidered and enriched, as it has been passed from mouth to mouth. Scene: an historical drama. Assistant director rushes from cottage (about to be burnt down to make a high 34