Close Up (Jan-Jun 1929)

Page scan 000351 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 #:
000351
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 NATURE AND LOVE The eternal struggle for survival : for food, for procreation . . . with words to that effect " the picture opens. It sounds rather like the history of this poor picture itself, which has been reduced to a skeleton of a mere six thousand feet in a desperate effort to please the censor. But our censor has studied his book on anatomical structure and sees sex-appeal even in the skeleton ; there is no tricking that worthy gentleman out of his prey. Here is a clean picture that, in any sane state, would be shown in schools as straightforward sex education, and the censor giggles and chuckles in the darkness of the projection room and says that it is not " nice " for the great general public of grown-up men and women. Where is that petition form ? Beginning sequence is elementary : two stars clash together and a world is formed. Barren world, but vapors cool to water, and in the water — life I Cells with movement in them ; striking contrast being drawn between the circulation of traffic in a great city. Amoebae, glittering gold of reflected light. Pleasant to think that glittering gold is the seed of life. Groups of cells are formed, multiply, split up, 69