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 #:
000477
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 What's Wrong Now? (tentative title), from a story by Lajos N. Egri, Hungarian playwright whose expressionistic drama, Rapid Transit was produced in New York by the Provincetown Players. The film has been adapted for the screen by Herman G. Weinberg who is also assisting in the capacity of assistant director and who was heretofore connected with various little " art " theatres in New York, The Fifth Avenue Playhouse, The Carnegie Playhouse, etc. Direction and sets are by Robert van Rosen (formerly scene designer for Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Theatre, the Provincetown Playhouse and others). The settings will be in the expressionistic vein, there are to be no titles and several new photographic (or rather, cinematographic) innovations are promised. The story is a satire on feminine idolatry in America and judicial methods there and will be projected through the medium of grotesque fantasy and stylized acting — much of the " slip action " hearkening back to Freud's notebooks, since it is of course, impossible, because of stringent moral censorship in New York, to achieve complete realism where the story's exigencies demand it. A set of ^''stills" will be forwarded CLOSE-UP for exclusive release on the Continent as soon as they are available. Simultaneously, another film, a one-reel study of New York, styled, Cosviopolis, by Herman G. Weinberg is also being made and will be released at the same time. Stills from this film will also be sent to CLOSE-UP. Excentric Films marks the first avant-garde production unit in America. 339