Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000505 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 #:
000505
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CLOSE UP after each title. ^lust one always see the speaker of a title painfully framing his first or last words? This is one of the rare occasions when quick cutting would have been successful. If the scene had been played in one shot by Krauss it would have been far more effective. Apart from the fact that ]\Ir. Alfred Abel, with his ridiculous horns, is not an inspiring figure, and that Krauss is a far better actor, we Avould have seen the words mirrored in Krauss's acting, felt the presence without seeing it, in fact, it might have introduced quite a diabolical touch. Locked in the room Krauss goes mad, and breaks ever}'thing within his grasp. As the Chinese servant, Maria Forescu is remarkable. Greater than the drug seller of Abu'ege. She glides in and out of the scene, counterpoint when lurid passions run high. She smiles instinclivelv at men, to humour them, to get them to be reasonable. Elizza la Porta as the daughter is cold, more restraint than one would have imagined after seeing her in a series of prostitute studies. At the end of the film, when Abel lies dead on the floor, there is a dissolve to the head of a devil. The crudest devil since the early films revived at Die Kamera, But Asta Nielsen . . . 41