Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1928
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000193
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 Confucius, that you can guide the people, but you cannot enlighten them. He accepts them as he finds them, but with mind and energies ever alert to give guidance to their developing picture tastes and their self-created readiness to respond to advanced thought and more subtle forms of art presentation. Of De Mille's fifty-three pictures, only two have been relatively lacking in popularity — The Whispering Chorus and The Road to Yesterday, The first, produced about ten years ago, is a sombre psychological study; and the latter, which was released in 1925, deals with the occult subject of reincarnation. Each of them was purposely experimental, a testing of the public's reaction to a theme of spiritual import treated with appropriate artistry. Although they cleared a financial profit, these two pictures were more or less of a popular disappointment. Yet, artistically speaking, they are to be recorded among the best things De Mille has ever done. Particularly is this true of The Road to Yesterday. As an example of photodramatic craftsmanship it is singularly beautiful and significant. It serves to demonstrate what De Mille is truly capable of doing, and offers a glimpse of what we may expect from him when the Jacks and Mollies of the Vv^orld, to whom his work is wisely dedicated, are prepared to accept and enjoy the higher reaches of cinema art. Clifford Howard. 4T