Close Up (Jan-Jun 1929)

CLOSE UP Street was my never-to-be-forgotten premiere to the whole art of the screen, and G. W. Pabst was and is my first recognised master of the art. The place of the Russians is assured, this is no moment with which to deal with them. But G. W. Pabst, being a European, is, in a Avay, a more subtle figure or symbol. He is, as it were, the link between the old tradition, pure art ideas of the French, of the Mennese, of (in a word) Europe and the new American and Near East. He is, in that, in a more precarious psychological position. He holds, as it were, the clue, must hold his position almost as the keystone to the vast aesthetic structure we call now unquestionably the Art of the Film. The Germans hold the key really, are the intermediaries between Russian and the outside world that still believes Red to be a symbol of murder and destruction. The new Russians, to digress, in their ideas of humanity, of equality, of the sheltering and housing of the poor and outcast, are, it is apparent, the only government not only in Europe, but in the world, who seem literallv to have considered the teaching of that much misunderstood Jew of Nazareth at its face value. " Feed the poor," " Sell all that you have and give it to the poor,'' " The last shall be first," etc., etc. There has been, to mv knowledge, no effort on the part of any government nor on the part of any organised body, " house " or " senate to make the film a medium for promulgation of ideas other than intellectuall}' sterile and of moron entertainment. This is really as a purely aesthetic critical aside, has nothing to do with politics and politicians ", of which I know nothing and of whom I know not one. It stands regrettably G2