Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 00050 from Close Up

Record Details:

Title:
Close Up
Date:
Jan-Jun 1930
Publisher:
[London, etc., Pool]
Volume:
Close up ... devoted to the art of films
Leaf #:
00050
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 wall, image of the solid window from which there is no escape. Already someone HAS escaped. Drama gallops. Horses, and wind, follow^ the fugitive. Wind tries to blow out the lights of the lantern ; wind is friendly to rebels. A political prisoner has vanished, and the governor will be replaced. How did the old governor manage to have such a young child? A cringing warder, one of the splendid types in the film, enters into the child's games. Suddenly he sees a telegram which tells him that a new boss is on the way ; he pushes the child onto its face. He goes to inform the prisoners, to torture them with doubt. There is a dignity in the men, who are suffering for a belief, which, contrasted with the cochonneries of the gaoler, points the moral that iron bars do not make a prison but a lighting effect. The little village chats about the big dodderer who is being replaced. Bulbous retainer clicks his heels, sweat running down the back of his neck; leaky barrel. At the most dignified, and most sweaty, moment the child rides a bicycle between firmly planted feet. The rest of the new chief's reception, by the staff, is told in feet, not from a desire to be clever (which it happens to be) but because they are all anxious about untoward incident, feet conscious. The tunnel corridor is filled with shadows of men, and with men who are shadows ; they wait for the arrival of the new chief. The political prisoners refuse a word of greeting. Actually, so far, the tightly-laced, crown-prince man has done nothing wrong, but they sense he can do no right. He clanks off, his egg-shaped head carried high. Of course 28