Close Up (Jan-Jun 1930)

Page scan 000107 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 #:
000107
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 women in all classes of society may find refuge here. Xo prying hand of Jix will disturb their embraces. There is much that will intrigue film-goers. Discussing the question of film censorship, (with the present position of which he is not " absolutely satisfied he writes : " One side of this question, and one of terrible and far-reaching importance, is the effect of films produced either in America or in this country, and exhibited in India or in the East, showing the white woman as an object of degradation. . . . .... It is undoubtedly essential that all nations w^hich rule in Eastern countries should see to it that the pride and character of their womanhood is maintained unimpaired." This piece of bombast I regard as the best thing literature has yet given us. The author is to be congratulated on acquainting the world with some of the sayings of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. The Cardinal Archbishop has said, it appears, that " no silly prating about the necessity of elucidating problems, or that ' to the pure all things are pure or that the claims of art must be satisfied, which we frequently hear, can change the moral law^, or alter the fundamental facts of human nature I very much doubt if even the Cardinal Archbishop could say what he meant by this. It is about as unintelligible as Stein is to newspapermen. That such bloody rubbish, should represent authority, poses a riddle, the solution of which will be found upside down in the dark places of big cities. H. A. M. F 77