Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Page scan 000514 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jul-Dec 1929
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
000514
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 Gert's ferocity might be mistaken for some vague soulfulness, so completely does it rest her. Pabst caught this in Joyless Street. At one moment there she leaned on a table, selling Garbo to a butcher, rather dazed and wan and immobile. There was something devilish about it. The same devilishness is here. After their supper the girls file to bed. They undress in row^s beside their bunks. At the top of the room now instead of the table Gert now presides with a gong instead of a baton. Bang, bang, bang. Every stroke a movement — every movement rhythm, every rhythm a new camera analvsis. Gathering tempo. Speed, riot, some demented ritual. Sweat bursts from her forehead. Eyes flashing vulturine and ecstatic. Lights out mean a furtive candle. At last there is a natural re-grouping. Thymian's friend, Erika, jumps up and sits on her bed. The Diary of the Lost One is brought out and they discuss it. Erika's ankle swings, making a natural handle to be grasped, and the gleaming face of the Gert makes a suitable target to be kicked with it. There is a moment's panic. Out goes the candle. In the dark a scamper for the Diary. Chased by Gert, tossed like a ball from girl to girl. Rebellion begun, takes flame. The tyrant is seized, pummelled, mobbed. Her face howls from the screen. With the gong, on a topmost bed a girl beats out a joyous tempo for the punishmicnt. Erika now has seized the keys and signing to Thymian, the two escape unseen. Bang, bang, bang. The punishment grows wolfish. The audience roars and stamps participation. 856