Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000386 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 #:
000386
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 the box office pull of the super-jazz band, that the effects are suppHed by the real orchestra in the actual theatre. Sirs, I want to see the film. A good film is a good film if it is seen cold it must never sink to being an animated magiclantern slide for musical selections. It is remarkable how much some pictures gain by beingshown cold The public are rarely given an opportunity of seeing pictures without the bleat of monster organs or the palpitations of muted strings ; they are not given the chance to say if they prefer to see their films without these elaborate appurtenances. The Film Society allowed Rasholnikov to be projected in silence, and Greed escaped with only slight musical accompaniment. Apart from these two performances at the Film Society I know of no public exhibition of a film in London without some kind of more or less musical accompaniment, and I suggest cold projection to the Avenue Pavilion as an interesting experiment. Eric Elliot in his Anatomy of Motion Picture Art points out that a great deal of the mystery and charm of the film lies in its silence, that a person crossing a room without awakening the slightest sound is performing an act which is immediately arresting. Banishing the saxaphones and drum taps is only one step further to capturing the hypnotic quality of the screen. Some films call more for music than others, but the gentlemen who waste hundreds of pounds on engagingexpensive jazz experts do nothing to strengthen their case. No precautions are taken that the music in the theatre shall match in exclusiveness that represented on the screen ; a piano, badly in need of tuning, may supply the effects for the costly band blaring impotently on the silver sheet. Few 40