Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000271 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 #:
000271
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 slick little mannerisms, and no one could be a more enthusiastic fan " of little Patsy Ruth Miller than I am. Patsy Ruth Miller is an exquisitely finished artist. As is Rod la Rocque (to name one among many), Rod la Rocque with his charm and Buddy this and Buddy that who all have a place in my affections. Certain of the productions of the foreign directions in Hollywood leave nothing to be desired but that is American, is Hollywood and England has other problems. The problem of England and the beauty of England (psychically) is never that of the Scandinavians, and technically at least it should learn and study not from America, but in and through the Germanic and Russian mediums. Hollywood has put America on the film map, certainly Germany has its representatives of giant realism in the film world, and Russia has surpassed everybody. Now where is England? Well, here is another problem, and to state my ideas and ideals for England is hardly writing about Russia. But then it is really writing about Russia, for your technical problems are much the same. The Russian has taught us, for instance, the fallacy of the star " as stars and the idiocy of the painted drop curtain, the elaborate and false studio interior, the beauty of shadow and rain and general natural effect that achieves depth and reality and the heights of impressionistic artistry through naturalness. I heard an English producer say the other day but what we need is stars, our people get stiff before a camera." Russia has taught us that every man, every women and every child is a star We are all stars '\ There is not one of us who, under skilful directorship cannot create a character, provided it is a real 27