Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000289 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 #:
000289
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 shall never have my consent to your marriage, he savs. His daughter returns his fierce stare. She and the smith go out. Wassily, unsure of himself before her sudden strength, watches them. At the door she says to her lover, If I come and live with you without marriage will you promise to honour me?" They go off together, leaving Wassily raging, but defeated. Their life is not so simple, however. Their door is constantly smeared with pitch by angry villagers. The young smith grows despondent, but Wassilissa, helping him at his work, laughs her defiance. Seeing the smeared door, she spits with angry contempt. At home Wassily has made many advances to the reluctant Anna, who succeeds in evading him. His wife and mistress watch with scandalised eyes, in a conspiracy of rage and avidity, and the atmosphere grows tense, and hostile. Their attitude is one almost of eagerness that the thing they have made up their minds is going to happen should do so, thus flooding them with triumph and a virtuous reason for venom. Madame Preobrashenskaja has certainly succeeded in this film in presenting unquestionably the finest studies in feminine psychology that have ever been made, from the sweet, simple Anna, and the strong, loyal Wassilissa to the carniverous, yet inevitable mistress who left to herself is a harmless great animal, yet whose tenacious brutality and cowardice are the great weapons of her virtue. Indeed, no more scathing, though quite impartial, indictment of socalled virtue has yet been made. Madame Preobrashenskaja's genius is in that her types are never exaggerated, and each has its inevitable raison d'etre. She does not hate people for 45