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 #:
000504
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 LP expression of depravity. All her past in her eyes. Timeworn phrase, but Asta Nielsen is doing time-worn things and making them live. The way she sweeps round the room to impress her society clients, the cynical twist of her mouth. Werner Krauss has some of the moments. An irrelevant part. A dope victim. He arrives at the house, he must see Abel, but he arrives at the critical hour when Abel is busy with Thamara's daughter. Krauss is a kind of commentary on the dramatic incident, much as the Russian use Nature for a commentary on the themes of their dramas. There is a scene when our devil villain gives Thamara a pistol. " You say," he tells her, that you want to be rid of me, that is the only way." She throws it from her. Not that solution ! The pistol lies on the floor. Here," I thought, " is where Krauss comes in. He breaks into the room, seizes the pistol . . ." But he does not, and Thamara shoots herself. The lust, the craving. Krauss refuses to leave the house. He is waiting with his back to the audience — the first time we see him in the picture — his hand drums on the arm of a chair. There is no close-up of the hand, all is played in long shot. After all that was said about the back of Jannings in Vaudeville, here is Krauss really doing it. Abel, the smiling devil, invites Krauss to come upstairs. Give me cocaine. Soon, soon. Upstairs. Abel first. Krauss follow^s in jerky rhythm, drawn up like a puppet on wdres by a man who promises cocaine. In the room Abel tells Krauss that he has been tricked. The director can think of no better wav of treating the sequence than by cutting from Krauss to a close-up of Abel 40