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 #:
000591
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 admiring the shadows which fall away from the amazing moon-lit spot in which the action is taking place. More often than not, you will find their soothing lines a relief from the exaggerated poses of the players. If the scene is taking place in a haunted house, forgers' den or fog-bound docks — these things always happen at night — there is usually the unaffected and unpremeditated beauty of those shadows, for the action is sure to be enlivened and emphasized by a lantern or street light glowing through the gloom. By watching for these little acts of grace it is possible to extract a certain amount of — well — interest, even from the worst of films, and there is rather a thrill in appreciating something which probably no one else in the theatre has discovered. Perhaps, however, you can go to a cinema which does not show that kind of film, in which case, you will have been spared the agony of sitting through an indifferent programme filler for the sake of watching a really good " big " picture. All the same, you will have missed my thrill of discovery. D. L. H. 417