Close Up (Jul-Dec 1929)

Page scan 000568 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 #:
000568
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 LP the German film we sense the honesty of that intention, whereas it is only an etiquette of decorative sentimentality in the French film. But the Germans have never learned to embody the moral idea in the unfolding motion picture, as have the Swedes of the great Swedish film period. Yet in this affection for the moral I find a hope for the German film, once it learns to wed the moral intention with its first victory, the simple theme of general reference (The Last Laugh, The Street, etc.) The success is just beginning to expose itself in the stories of children and young folk. The films of children are as yet superior to those dealing with young folk, simply because the problem of the latter is more ponderous. But the fact that the Germans, of all people, care for their children en masse promises genuine films of the lives of the children. Max Mack's Der Kampf der Tertia is an excellent indication, and the sensitivity of Hans Behrendt's The Robber Band is another indicator of hope. The American films of children are most wretched, from Our Gang to The Innocents of Paris, Childhood is made egregious in them. The French film of children is usually the film of a child and the reference is seldom farextending (Poil de Carotte, Gribiche), Moreover, the French have little sense of the child as child. The Germans, I think, have shown they are best fit to deal with childhood. The group-mind of the German comprehends the child as group-individual and this is fortunate for both the verity of the performance and its cinematic effectiveness, as well as for the child participating (but this is a matter beyond this essay). There have been accumulating in the German kino for 394