Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000273 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 #:
000273
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 I do not mean (how could I) that all British films are rotten. One speaks naturally in extremes . . . there is no time to discuss and too subtly differentiate. But I will say for the English films and against myself that one of the heads of the Moscow Art Film School said to me recently in Berlin, I want to tell you one thing, and I want you to realize how sincerely I am speaking. I was impressed greatly with your Dawn, Your actress is magnificent, and your film altogether to be compared with the best of our Russian productions/' It will show you how weak I am in many matters, and how sometimes unreliable when I confess to you that I had to sav to him, I have not seen it." H. D. PROGRESS By Oswell Blakeston Certain technical manuals hope to astound their readers with the statement that pioneers of the motion picture industry " (Heaven help us all !) experimented with paper film. It appears to the compilers of these w^orks to be a ludicrous fact, almost alarming. Just imagine it — PAPER FILM ! Ha ! ha ! how far we have travelled, eh?" Progress. Celluloid with stress marks, static, and grain ! Would paper be subject to all these electrical disfigurements ? Take the extreme cases, the severe but revealing tests. A film in the tropics ; celluloid under the ordeal of intense heat. Ask now^ if we have found the perfect base for silver emulsion, for what happens ? The cameraman may go through the day without mishap, unless he leaves the camera in the sun for too 29