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 #:
000178
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 ship anchored off the coast of Virginia in 1619 until the present hour, the Aframerican, as he has been facetiously designated, has been the most persistent insoluble in the chemistry of Americanization. As a result, around him have whirled the mightiest forces of American life. He has been the cause of bitter strife — the genesis of devastating conflicts — the source of endless speculation and perplexity — and the origin of much of the humor which is labelled American. In the exploitation of Negro material the screen has lagged behind the stage — and the stage has been inexcusably tardy. For fifty years almost the stage adhered to the Uncle Tom tradition. When the Negro was dramatized, invariably he was a simple, old retainer of the Uncle Tom type with white, woolly hair and a quavering voice, extolling the virtues of Missus and Massa; or he was an ignorant, improvident scamp of the Topsy genre, although this was sometimes varied by the use of a black villain in order to I provide a suitable object for the exaltation of Nordic ' supremacy.^ Even these characterizations were seldom, if ever, interpreted by actual Negroes. White men in black face, after the fashion of the once popular minstrel, were selected to depict Negroes. And as a rule they were just about as accurate in their portrayal as they were real in their /racial delineation. The use of Negro themes interpreted by ^ de facto Negroes is comparatively new to the American stage. It followed in the wake of the remarkable performance of Charles S. Gilpin as Emperor Jones in Eugene CNeill's 'play of that name. That Negro themes are capable of successful and stirring dramatic treatment, and that Negro 120