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 #:
000324
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 may be kept one day only, and mostly are one reel long. It is impossible to comment on films from a catalogue, but it is hoped that a member of Close Up staff may be able to view certain of them during the autumn, when a fuller review can be given. One does not need to wait, however, to decide that the idea of these films is basically excellent, and that here is the best and perhaps the only means to build up a systematic circulation of films valuable in interest and education. The haphazard and half-hearted efforts in educational films so far achieved have succeeded only in creating prejudices against them, whereas the really instructive film could and should have the highest value both in interest and entertainment. For if we are really interested there is the highest form of entertainment. A good simple film dealing with the mechanism of a motor car (to take one example) must be invaluable to all learners, for it cannot be denied that far too few people even among car owners are the least aware of how their motor runs, or of what to do when it wont. For films of this description there is an ever widening field. Abwege (Crisis). Erda film. Direction G. W. Pabst. Featuring Brigitte Helm, Jack Trevor, Herthe van Walter. Pabst's extraordinary directorial gifts are here lent to the story of a marital misunderstanding. There has grown, not unjustifiably, the opinion that anything by Pabst must be right. But we must begin our review with several criticisms before passing on to praise. Firstly, the scenario. Just as much as that of Joyless 72