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 #:
000458
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 A NEW FORCE IN THE BRITISH CINEMA. There is a difference between a cameraman and a photographer." " Criticism is all very well, but one must start sometime to make films oneself." Such are the deracinating remarks of Mr. J. Grierson, who has made the best, and most Russian, British film. The swash of the sea, and the pulling in of nets; two short beats, one long. White houses; seamen with white parcels under their arms; wiiite seagulls; the white light house, temple of white light ; the high seas and white breakers. Two miles of nets; the sky darkens. What adventure in the w^ords " mizzen " and " spanker ", words from the boys' books of adventure. And one man keeps watch till dawn. A slimibering boy is roused, in the most unaffected manner, to take his part in the labour of pulling in the nets. Dog-fish and congers, destroyers, move between the shoals. (Sequence taken in a tank with several exposures. All the fish pour in one direction except a few, in the last exposure, and this clever piece of production gives the sensation of speed.) Storm. More steam for the straining winch. How pleased we are for these sailors, so natural in their close ups, w^hen this monotonous task is over. If we cannot learn it from Eisenstein, from Mr. Grierson, let us learn that working men are the best actors. Visual metaphor, a whale. Heavy, sludgy. Full speed ahead, through the storm seas to get first 320