Close Up (Jan-Jun 1929)

Page scan 000771 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 #:
000771
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 was I of giving away the idea belonging to the most favoured critic. The plot was to take a day in a dog's life, using the camera as the dog's eyes; the idea being that a room must look like a jungle to a dog. Nix on dat Judas stuff, for Monsieur S. Silka has run away with the idea. A duck, who tires of the monotonous barnyard, seeks the great world — the pond round the corner ! What a saga the search for that pond becomes, with tapestry tree-tops far above, travelling shots from the duck's view point, and landscapes. A poem it is called, and a poem it is in achievement. Simply; the duck lures a hen to share his travels; a viper puts them on the wrong path ; the duck enjoys himself in the finally discovered pond ; the willing hen drowns in an attempt to adapt herself to life in the water ; darkness leads the duck back to the barnyard where the farmer's wife is seeking a nice fat bird for the table. So the bad duck gets his ! I cannot imagine an audience who would not enjoy this short. The cutting is a fine art, the photography without flaw. Monsieur Silka used a hand-camera of French make ; and his picture, although in every way professionally secure, is a lesson to the amateur who has no larger resources. O.B. 87