Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Page scan 00097 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00097
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 generals wait for the Emperor with threatened resignations, if he persists in exacting the extreme penalty of the law from his own son, the actor behaves like a human being by accepting the situation. The tale of a despot who. enjoys a sensation of power by supervising machines yet experiences only transitory satisfaction because he cannot rule nongoose-steppers (human beings). The goose-step . . . Halt . . . Take that man to Castle Curstin for court-martial, the fifth button on his tunic has not been polished . . . Three-cornered hats must be doft three times, while intrigues are encouraged by the architecture as much as gestures by the clothes . . . Key-holes (mix), shaped like ears, must be listened at : enormous caskets stuffed with secret documents must be broken into. A grand film, a film to be seen. There is mental conflict behind the pageantry. The son of the Emperor wants to play the flute; none of the exaggeration of Hollywood's aspiring playwright who wants to leave an enriched posterity, of poet pining to storm the intelligentsia (and get into transition!), but a simple boy who wants to play ephemeral tunes on the flute . . . Soldiers cannot goose-step to the flute, but Mr. Czerepy does not let the son win a competition for flutists at Atlantic City, instead he allows the martinet to be true to life. This film, revived to-day, would make many old-timers cry, " There you are, I told you so; those were the grand days for FILMS As far as Germany is concerned they were. OSVI'ELL BlAKESTON. 67