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 #:
000588
Language:
English
Subjects:
motion pictures, Motion pictures -- Periodicals
Collection:
Global Cinema, Switzerland, and Early 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:
August 29, 2022
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CLOSE UP When Mr. Whiteman arrived at the studio— incidentally receiving fifty thousand dollars for so doing— he glanced over the scenario that had been prepared for him, and promptly rejected it— a right accorded him under the contract. In a feverish effort to please the jazz maestro, the best Hollywood story talent was called in and ordered forthwith to write something that would fit Mr. Whiteman, as well as the ninety-thousand-dollar futuristic set and the publicly announced title of The King of Jazz, But all in vain. There was no satisfying Mr. Whiteman ; and after gracing the lot for the time called for in the contract, he and his men picked up their saxophones and other weird instruments and hied them hence, with a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in their collective pockets as salary for doing nothing. According to the present understanding, Mr. Whiteman will return in November and look over the stories which will be prepared for him in the meantime, and if any one of them appeals to him as worthy, the making of the picture will proceed from that date. And when it is released we mav look for some superlative announcements in praise of it, with special emphasis on the cost of this mammoth and peerless production. Life in Hollywood is not all roses. Much there is of thorny trouble and worriment which the finished picture never reveals. The public must be served, and the producers are never unmindful of their duty on this score, whatever the cost. That a little more system, a little more thought and calculation, a little more intelligence might obviate many of their worries and expenses, is neither here nor there. 414