Close Up was one of more significant film journals of the 1920s and 1930s. Published between 1927 and 1933, the journal billed itself as “the only magazine devoted to film as an art” while promising readers “theory and analysis: no gossip.” The publication was the brain child of Kenneth Macpherson, a young, well-to-do Scottish-born novelist, photographer, critic, and film-maker. Macpherson was editor-in-chief of Close Up, with the English writer known as “Bryher” serving as its assistant editor; the modernist American poet Hilda Doolittle (aka “H.D.”)* and the English writer and artist Oswell Blakeston both were regular contributors. Additionally, notable literary and cinematic figures contributed articles on the latest films and film theory; among them were the likes of Sergei Eisenstein, Gertrude Stein, René Crevel, Dorothy Richardson, Paul Rotha and the American critic and poet Harry Potamkin. Others associated with the story of Louise Brooks — such as Herman G. Weinberg and Man Ray — were also contributors.
As noted in a 1998 anthology of writings from the magazine, “Close Up was theoretically astute, politically incisive, open to emerging ideas from psychoanalysis, passionately committed to ‘pure cinema,’ and deeply critical of Hollywood and its European imitators.” Close Up was serious minded, as well as internationalist. Articles covered films produced not only in Europe and America, but also those made in the old Soviet Union, Japan, Brazil and elsewhere. Close Up was published from Switzerland (where Macpherson had a home),while its correspondents were based across Europe and the United States — namely in Berlin, Vienna, Geneva, Paris, London and Moscow — as well as in New York City and Hollywood. The magazine itself was printed in England (where Close Up also had an editorial office) and France, and distributed in Paris, Berlin, London, New York, and Los Angeles.
Not surprisingly, Close Up was enamored with the films of G. W. Pabst, the left-leaning, Austrian-born German director who worked with Louise Brooks on two occasions. Throughout its six year run, the journal wrote about a number of Pabst films, but perhaps none more than Pandora’s Box. This page surveys the editorial coverage (articles, mentions and photo features) the production received in Close Up, both before and after its February 9, 1929 premiere.
The first mention of the film in Close Up occurred in the August 1928 issue, when editor Kenneth MacPherson briefly noted, “Pabst is about to make Wedekind’s Box of Pandora, and is (as I write) held up only by not being able to find a suitable leading lady. Having interviewed over six hundred applicants, and tested many of them, he is by now sending cables to America. By the time this appears no doubt somebody will have been chosen, and production will be in progress.” Two months later, an anonymous note in the journal’s “Comment and Review” section followed-up: “The long search at last is ended. Lulu has been found. By the time this is in print it will be news no longer. Having literally searched the whole of Europe for a suitable type for Lulu in The Box of Pandora (adapted from the book by Wedekind), having interviewed hundreds and tested scores, in Germany, France, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, G. W. Pabst has at last found, in America, the type for which he had been seeking in vain. Lulu will be no other than Louise Brooks, the well known junior Paramount star. The search for Lulu has been almost the principal topic of interest in Germany for a couple of months. Everywhere one went one heard “What about Lulu?”, “Is Lulu found yet” . . . Lulu is found. And now, after long delay, Pandora will be filmed by Nero Film.”
Those two bits were followed by a four image, two page photo feature which appeared in the December 1928 issue. (The still to the far right — depicting Alwa / Franz Lederer drinking a mug of beer while sitting atop a performer — is extraordinarily rare. Is it even in the film?) And then in the January 1929 issue, there was a four page, eight image photo feature. (The two images of Schigolch / Carl Goetz in the January issue are likewise uncommon.) All this, two mentions and two photo spreads, appeared before the film was even released!
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| Close Up, December 1928 | Close Up, December 1928 |
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| Close Up, January 1929 | Close Up, January 1929 |
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| Close Up, January 1929 | Close Up, January 1929 |
Pandora’s Box received its approval card (no. 21540), which allowed for its exhibition in Germany, on January 30, 1929. Some ten days later, the film premiered at the Gloria–Palast in Berlin on February 9, 1929. The March 1929 issue of Close Up (no doubt prepared before the film was released) contained a two page, four image photo feature from the film. Below the page on the right (which contains another uncommon image of Schigolch / Carl Goetz) it is noted that Pandora’s Box “was passed by the German censors after a stormy discussion of several hours duration.” The March 1929 issue also contained “An Appreciation,” an interview-profile of director G.W. Pabst authored by regular Close Up contributor H.D. (the poet Hilda Doolitte). In this latter piece, Pabst discusses Pandora’s Box.
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| Close Up, March 1929 | Close Up, March 1929 |
But wait… there’s more. The April 1929 issue of Close Up also contained a photo feature — this time a three page, five image grouping of stills, as well as a review of the film by A. Kraszna-Krausz, a noted Hungarian-born British writer and publisher. Follow THIS LINK to read Kraszna-Krausz’s seven page review, whose first page is show below. Close Up was read by others interested in film. Notably, the unnamed film correspondent of the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer newspaper in England seemingly read Kraszna-Krausz’s review and wrote this bit into their column: “… and from Pabst’s latest picture — not yet shown here — though a critique of this film, which also appears in the issue, is not very favorable. It seems that Pabst has not yet succeeded in reproducing the authentic atmosphere of Wedekind’s novel Pandora on which the film is based, and in particular has found no equivalent for Wedekind’s pungent dialogue. His heroine, Louise Brooks — specially brought from Hollywood — is also said to lack the physical appeal essential for a character intended to represent the tragic results of unadulterated sexual impulse. But the ‘stills’ are so attractive that I hope we shall see the film here before long.”
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| Close Up, April 1929 | Close Up, April 1929 |
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| Close Up, April 1929 | Close Up, April 1929 |
By June, Pandora’s Box had been in circulation for a few months, and the film had begun to make its way around Germany and continental Europe, including France. (This was at a time when films were not released at the same time, even in the same country.) The June 1929 issue of Close-Up contained “Letter to an Unknown” by Jean Lenauer, the magazine’s Paris correspondent. It discusses the Pabst film, but it primarily focuses on French censorship of the Pabst production, which was screened in Paris under the title LouLou. As Lenauer revealed, the French censors changed more in the film than just changing Alwa from Dr. Schön’s son to his male secretary. Follow THIS LINK to read Lenauer’s seven page piece.
And then in May 1930, the journal’s London correspondent, Robert Herring, wrote a two page piece on English censorship of Pandora’s Box. Herring’s piece, “For Adolescents Only,” is discussed further in the context of the film’s problematic reception on the LBS website page Pandora’s Box – Censorship Records. There were other incidental mentions of Louise Brooks and Pandora’s Box in Close Up (including a review of The Diary of a Lost Girl) later in the year, but the last significant discussion around the film centered around American censorship of the film. That discussion came in Herman G. Weinberg’s “The Cinema and the Censors“, which appeared in the October 1930 issue. An excerpt from Weinberg’s piece, which notes that “The entire last reel of The Box of Pandora was ordered out of this film”, is further discussed on the LBS website page Pandora’s Box – Censorship Records.
Want to learn more about Close Up and its remarkable contribution to film history? Start with its Wikipedia page, which features a short history of the journal as well as links to online copies of the run of the publication. (The list of scanned volumes available through the Internet Archive are also listed below.) For further context, be sure and check out this article, “Criticism: March of the Film Intellectuals,” on the British Film Institute (BFI) website. Another recommended source of information is the 1998 book, Close Up, 1927-1933: Cinema and Modernism, edited by Anne Friedberg, James Donald, and Laura Marcus. This volume republishes articles from the journal, with an introduction and a commentary on the lives of, and complex relationships between, its writers and editors.
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| Close Up bound volumes | Close Up, 1927-1933: Cinema and Modernism |
* In her 1984 biography of Hilda Doolittle, , author Barbara Guest notes that at one point “Macpherson was already excitedly proposing that Pabst replace Louise Brooks with H.D. in Pandora’s Box.”
Otherwise, more about Pandora’s Box can be found on the Louise Brooks Society’s page devoted to the film, which can be found HERE.
