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 #:
000515
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 Pabst's camera is like a busy eye. It plucks at a million details. Not here and there, dissociated parallels or comments— sheer avid detail builds a raging, intimate riot ; one vast co-ordination — conditioned-reflex, if you like. You have been bullied in that house, you have sat in your seat unable to help, and at last you are freed, and you fight, and when the gong beats over all, you stamp and cheer, you are part of the torrent of fists and falling bodies. That is Pabst as I know him. That is cinema as I know it. And because of it, the film is important. But now, the other aspects. (1) There is a specious and irrelevant sequence of low comedy in which Sigfried Arno in a false beard spoils the screen for nearly ten minutes. It was not funny, nor bawdy, but false as the beard he wore, and had no place in narrative, in time or space. I cannot imagine why it was not cut entirely out. (2) If you are dealing with a Lost One, either you must deal with her or leave her alone. It doesn't make an atom of difference that she faints each time she is about to get what's coming to her — and faint she does, four times, and if that's not excessive, spare me from something that is. Indeed, on one occasion, when she faints while dancing and is waltzed by her partner through a suite of rooms and literally on to the bed, there is simply nothing to be done about it. The most avid spectator could hardly bother to go on looking for so long. (3) The story is worthless. It points nothing, except a finger of wrath and scorn at the Institution, as such, and at 357