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 #:
000460
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 That we are not exaggerating can be proved by the fact that the plates of Cecil Beaton are considered freak We wonder if the critic, who used this word in a West End paper, ever heard of Francis Bruguiere, or is acquainted with the work he did several years ago ? The omission of several names is perturbing. Surely we could have been spared the old stuff vrith the nude girl and the fan, or the little sun of light? And is a portrait really interesting because a girl holds a tray behind her head ? And when are we to see the end of the snap-shots of oil, reflections, speckled black and white halation, deep se; backgrounds, steps broken off, modern houses looked up at, scaffolding, squared light behind a sitter's head, heads of old men with one lamp cast upwards on the sweating brow, certain aspects of a roof? Is it terribly clever to take a picture of Elsa Lanchester's arm-pit, or somebody else's feet in a boat ? We believe that photography is an art, closely allied lo cinematography ; but, the light must be controlled. It is mere journalism to take an arrangement of oil drums on a wharf, or a pile of herrings. The journalist is not responsible for the grouping or the lighting. Moreover, the nudes and curves of cardboard are not the best subjects for the seeker of better things. P. Dubreuil's jazz studies should be mentioned but they are not of importance. The Annual Exhibition of British Photography is still more disappointing. A polite Japanese student told us that he found it a good way to pick up English, consult the catalogue and look at the photo. There is certainlv no 322