Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000165
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, and Early 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:
August 29, 2022
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CLOSE UP now that the phonofilm is an actuality, will the richness of Negro life — mime, song, dance and picturesque background — have a full chance to be exposed to the world, the white man's world as well as the Negro's. It will, of course, be some time in coming to fulfilment, but sooner or later it will be, and I for one welcome such signs as this given by your magazine. You say in your letter that your number will be devoted mainly to Negro writers and their views on the subject, accompanied by stills etc. Such a number ought to be of tremendous interest. As a w^hite man who has done some writing on Negro subjects, I wish to congratulaltj you on this move. I shall look forward to seeing the number. Paul Green. (Mr. Green is the author of In Abraham's Bosom, and other Negro plays). THE AFRAMERICAN CINEMA The negro is not new to the American film. The late Bert Williams appeared in a film before the war. But this did antagonism. It was the film of the Johnson-Jeffries fight not get very considerable circulation due to Southern that thrust the negro out of films and created the interstate commerce edict against fight films. Sigmund Lubin produced all-negro comedies in Philadelphia before the war. 107