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 #:
000508
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, and Early 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:
August 29, 2022
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CLOSE UP An interesting scene. They have not yet evolved the brutal officer of The End of St, Petersburg, who strikes the bound worker with his fist. Perhaps because the sand is so stark the men appear less harsh — the men who did not kill the sleepingsentry. Is this your discipline sneers the officer — or perhaps they had not the courage in the early days to hit out so strongly. The procession moves off in the sand. A man pauses to kill a friend with parched lips writhing in agony on the sand. Meanwhile the girl and the officer are strangely attracted. She is writing in a tent. He asks her what she is writing. She shows him — a poem ! To show her poem, an act of the greatest friendship ! They are drawn together because her disguised feminism is satisfied by his education. Which of her comrades could understand her poem ? A poem of four or five lines ! He is drawn to her because of her beautiful primitive attraction. Culture appeals to the primitive, and the primitive to culture. It is very quietly shown. The basis of a volcanic love affair. At night she cuts his bonds so that he can sleep in comfort. At length the survivors come to a friendly village. For a few weeks their leader allows them to take part in the village activities. What a relief for us also to watch boats putting out to sea. The tension has gone with the sand. The officer lies on a bed sulkilv smoking, the girl busies herself with a thousand and one affairs. But these men are doomed. They set out in a boat. The villagers wave good-bye from the shores. A storm arises. 44