Close Up (Jan-Jun 1929)

Page scan 00080 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jan-Jun 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00080
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:
June 20, 2024
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CLOSE UP we have only a memory — and memory is a powerful intensifier — hence the enhancement of past experience and error in regard to the new film. Is it perhaps desirable that Pabst should repeat his Joyless Street, Paul Leni his Waxworks, Rene Clair his Entr'acte, Cavalcanti Rien Que Les Heures, James Craze Jazs, and Griffith The White Sister. Is it not better to patronise their new films, revealing fresh possibilities, and, forgetting what they have done to date, concentrate our interest upon their latest works in order to draw from them what they have to impart? For when it comes to the point what is it that we have to do? To go forw^ard ! That our path may be a mistaken one is not the point. If it brings us something new, and with art it always will, we should assent rather than go on talking about the good old times Such an attitude is justified by the artists themselves. For if one asks them what they feel with regard to this or that earlier work they will answ^er almost without exception : " It no longer interests me; what matters to me is the film upon which I am now at work.'' And the critics, those who wish to lend their support to the evolution of the film (the others we may regard as negligible), should possess this sense and only this, the sense of renewal. All other critical work, since it is fruitless, is condemned to death from the outset, must die through sheer lack of sap. The art of the film, in particular, needs the powers of those w^ho look forward only. We can abandon the business of reminiscence to the other arts. Jean Lenauer. 50