Close Up (Jul-Dec 1928)

Page scan 000658 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 #:
000658
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 Scenery in the Volga, nicely photographed; more new factories and towns and (alas !) new statues. After The Last Days of St. Petersburg and Ten Days we would have thought that the Russian would have had enough of statues. There must be something in man that compels him to make monuments. Thank the gods that these are the least displeasing of statues, sculptured in modern style. At the conclusion of the tour there is a triumphant march past the Kremlin in Moscow of thousands of Russian workers, led by the Red Army.'* This sequence has the power of the best Russian classical films. A comrade on our right asked us if we would like a copy of the words of the International. Our judicial mind warned us that we were carried away by the art of the film, but we almost felt sorry that we cannot sing. O. B. FILM REVIEWS A Document of Shanghai. The first production of Volksverband fiir Filmkunst. Direction : Leinhard. Cutting by Albrecht Victor Blum. Titles by Franz Hollering. The strength of this film is in its presentation of actuality. The real event has so great a hold on the observer. These photographs of the Chinese insurrection in Shanghai last year, despite their crudity, move us more profoundly than any 66