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 #:
000264
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 way sever life from art and religion from bread and butter or, if you prefer it, bread and red wine or white wine, these Russian productions will offer a sustenance indeed like that shadow of a great rock '\ in the very weary land " of international dissension and internal discord. For the world of the him to-day (there is no getting awav from it) is no longer the world of the him, it is the world. It is only those who are indift'erent to the world itself and its fate, who can afford to be indifferent to the fate of the film industry and the fate of the film art. The industry and the art are still divorced in most of the countries of Europe and the States of America. But no, not entirelv divorced. There has never been, perhaps «rince the days of the Italian Renaissance, so great a stirring in the mind and soul of the world consciousness. The " stirring " shows itself in little things, in the great-little people, in the very great and in the people. I was told the other day by one of the most intelligent of the English producers (in fact, by the most vibrantly intelligent mind that I have encountered anywhere in the film world) that the fate of the producers hangs for the large part not on the West End London theatre-goers, but on the provinces, and that the small town provincial box offices are demanding more and more and MORE " thick-ear stuff'." Well, where is this leading us? Concessions have been made to the public and (I heard the same complaint from one of the great German directors') the film art, the film industry is now in a state of psychic fixation. For the " thick-ear has set the standard, the slight concession has become a great concession, and the demand of the box office is fast becoming a command. 2D