Close Up (Jan-Jun 1929)

Page scan 000443 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 #:
000443
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 THE FUTURE OF THE BRITISH CINEMA Mine is an after-dinner Muse. Its inspiration is Benedictine. In consequence, I claim to be uniquely favoured in the contemplation of British films. Only the gourmand can smell Wardour Street and retain optimism. The rest just see it and die. Last month's Close Up was a stimulating affair, anyway. I retreated with it to one of Soho's few restaurants where it is possible to dine without rubbing shoulders with film travellers, film renters, film exploiteers, film publicists, film critics, film exhibitors, film producers, film actors, and the other gentlemen who make the British cinema what it is. Having read my own article first, with that natural egotism inherent in every creative artist, even if he is only a hack writer, I rose, by arithmetic progression, to the many excellent tilts at the English armoury contained in the remarks of Messrs. Macpherson and Potamkin. After which I felt better. Wardour Street, geographically at my elbow, was mentally below the horizon. No longer was I in an atmosphere of misapplied superlatives and bad c 33