Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000246 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 #:
000246
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 It is easy to say that the present period of social reconstruction in the USSR affords unsurpassed film subjects. That is quite evident. But the point is that these subjects are not furbished up in the trimmings of conventional drama, not romanticised, not used as the mise'enscene to the trivial love affairs of trivial people, as they would be anywhere else, and also they are not made with any concession to accepted dramatic tradition. They are made from the heart and the brain and the spirit. They are swept by greatness and tears. We are not asked to sympathise with one woman and her vicissitudes, or with one hero, but with mankind and with every hero in the world. The hearts that have been given to these films have bled, and the souls been lacerated. They have not had time to waste on idle themes, and pretty ideas. Their themes and their ideas are burning flames. They are teachers in the highest sense. Their message repeated again and again is have done ivith useless sufferings and they show how to have done with useless suffering, and they show how useless suffering is. Such films can and will end degradation, and wars and hate. With this equipment the cinema is used more widely even than radio, which plays so wide a part in cultural instruction throughout the USSR. Russia, it must be remembered, has vast tracks of sparsely populated or unpopulated land. Tiny villages lie dotted far from everywhere, where formerly darkest ignorance reigned. These had to be reached and brought into line. And for this purpose travelling cinemas were instituted. In 1926 these numbered 976. To-day they amount to nearly 2,000. Each travelling cinema takes a monthly route visiting roughly 20 villages. 10