Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Page scan 000139 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 #:
000139
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 It is the negroid in Fetchit which is most sheerlv line. Race. The national, if one may bring it in terms of our contention. Xegro being white John Citizen (excuse me) can now be brought in Hne with wliat we have said about ]^Iargaret ]\Iann and her four no more Tyrolean than I am bovs. The negro does not have to come to us for civilization, culture or religion. Periodically we (the white races) are shown we are neither civilized, cultured nor religious. It would hardlv be progress for those who have retained what Fetchit, the symbol, has retained, to lose it for regimented, squad-drill tactics of our minds and bodies. The negro's civilization is capable of less pinched, less wary, less unhappv tvpes. Xo, we have not come to the beginning of understanding. Our idea of the Orient is as oriental as the cotton bedroom kimonos in any sales catalogue. Our idea of the negro is as negroid as Al Jolson and no more. We sentimentalise about the negro, we admire him, we shout hurrah, as it might be, when he is mentioned — some of us still walk out of the room when he comes in — and how far if so little we understand ourselves do we understand him ? I have seen people brace their shoulders and spit without the grace and iustiilcation of a cat at his mention in casual conversation. A boat has jtist brought me back from the north of the world. The most blotched of the blotched harridans from Wigan was heard to remark that the Laplanders had horrible faces. Fat folds of evil and repression sat on her funnv little mouth. Her eyes were the eyes of boiled trout, steaming wanly through pince-nez. Every time the boat lurched, ungoverned, flapping knees twitched and she belched. In the faces of the Lapps was the 89