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 #:
000440
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Early Cinema, Global Cinema, and Switzerland
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 question; and, although the picture is not great, it is exciting. In spite of the exceptionally heavy sadistic stuff we were never moved to disrespectful^laughter. There is a scene when Ivan has blinded a tiresome clown with scalding soup, and the jester's cap lies, where it has rolled, at the foot of the throne. Ivan has the idea of humiliating a bovard by forcing him to don the cap. Had ]\Ir. Milestone directed the picture it would not have mattered who had been chosen as the victim of the little prank ; it would have been vitriolic Ivan whose head the cap fitted. In other words intellectuals are welcome to their mirth, we film-lovers are entitled to it ourselves, for it is not the fault of the cinema that Waterloo, The Street of Sin, Betrayal, and the rest of the ordinary heavy stuff is such pleasant material for scoffers. OSWELL BlAKESTOX. EPOCH The first tele-talkie has been produced by Capt. Baird. By fives we went into a little room : were lined up, shortest in the front, tallest to the rear, and told to stare at a mahogany box with a screen about as large as a magazine page. Method was sound on film : matter was assorted stills of His Majesty, The Prince of Wales, and animated 302