Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000366 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 #:
000366
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 other countries, the special distinctions of their peoples and the merits of their great men to be given prominence ; (d) the historical accuracy of material selected from life to be safeguarded and, in the interest of avoiding any wounding of national feelings, such material so to be treated as not to evince a deliberate ' tendency ' . . Yes, yes, yes," one stammers, good, beautiful, admirable, but — how is it to be done?" Fine representations, no wounding of national susceptibilities, no ' tendency ' ? In other words, we will pledge ourselves to undeviating objectivity, to the suppression of all feeling, all personal will. We will behave like angels rather than like men ! Yet, unless I am mistaken, art is a human and not an angelic affair : the expression of human characteristics, human passions, human aspirations. The Biblical love thy neighbour " cannot be interpreted to mean that we shall perceive nothing but his virtues. Account must be taken also of those he fancies he possesses. We must recognise the virtues of others, but also their defects. Occasionally these are variants of our own. Not for a moment does he who reaps nothing but praise credit the sincerity of the panegyric. Such things are useless alike to individuals, nations and races. We must be free to say what we believe we know about others, to express what and how we see. Light is revealed only by shadow. We want to see films that are more than polite formalities, films that speak without crippling restrictions. Polite formalities are apt to be not merely false, but tedious. There is something to be said for a temperamental lie. For a tedious lie, nothing. I am obliged to compare the unimagin 20