Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000203 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 #:
000203
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 potted palms and a cartload of sand are the Sahara, and it is interesting to note early use of the travelling camera, which recedes in front of jannings' advancing and threatening figure. Pola is so rent by this harrowing spectacle she falls down dead. Herr Jannings stabs himself and Liedke rushes out into the night, while a final sub-tible savs " Too late, too late." Next an early (and how !) Henny Porten. Could it really have been made in 1901? Henny 's hair is like two bolsters, one perched one either temple. Her waist is 16 inches, and as she walks her skirt picks up and deposits all the dust of the vicinitv. This is a strong drama with " fast scenes ", and has an aged father and a lover she meets on street corners. Next a 1912 Asta Nielsen. This was perhaps the most rew^arding of the three. Close ups and panning camera show film technique well on the move. Asta Nielsen is gorgeous, and even then was the Nielsen of to-day — a great actress, with subtle and exlraordinarv magnetism. Dressed as a small girl, getting in everybody's way, an overgrown hoyden in the toils of first love, this film, with its ample view of her beautifully thin legs (and all that thereon is), was certainly one of those which must have caused countless elderly persons to begin to say what they and their offspring have gone on saying ever since, Those dreadful films. They are corrupting the youth of the w^hole world !" Its wildest abandon, needless to say, was positively ascetic in comparison with modern films of similar genre, but there it is. It was charming to see Asta Nielsen — then at the height of her youthful beauty — so integral, and sound, and convincing. Other revivals have come from the early beginnings of 49