Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000241 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 #:
000241
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 Vol. Ill No. 3 September 1928 AS IS BY THE EDITOR. We have called this a Russian number. We had to, because with a rush of new films from Russia into Germany, there was nothing else to write about. Everything else paled into insignificance. But don't be misled by the term. By Russian number we do not mean that in this issue, and this issue alone we imagine we can give one fraction of the consideration and attention necessary. We can only make a beginning. Russia has imposed — without knowing it — a difficult task on Close Up. For we cannot begin where Russia begins. The ground is not yet ready. Before critical discussions can be made, an impartially critical attitude must be established, and before we can begin to cope with the films as films, we have to cope with the public which has been carefully nurtured to believe that all Russian films are veiled digs at Europe's dwindling thrones, or that — as a London critic (who had probably seen only The Postmaster in the whole course of his career) said — even the Russian films, of which 6