Acknowledgements
2000; Archaeology of the Moving Image, UIMP Valencia, 1996; Moving Images, Culture and the Mind, University of Copenhagen, 1997; Historical Reception Studies, University of Bergen, 1992. Enthusiastic comments and additional 'evidence' from audiences outside academe have also been offered at talks given at the Forum, Heversham, Cumbria; the Storey Institute, Lancaster; and Glasgow Film Theatre.
In the course of the research, numerous libraries and archives have been consulted: these are listed in full in the Appendix. I am enormously grateful for the efficiency and helpfulness of their response to what must sometimes have seemed obscure requests.
The research could not have been undertaken without funding supp ort from: the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Economic and Social Research Council {project number Rooo 23 5385), the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Glasgow, and Lancaster University's Faculty of Social Sciences.
Picture acknowledgements: Cover -still from. The Long Day Closes, -directed, by- Terence Davies, reproduction courtesy of BFI/FilmFour and the Ronald Grant Archivc.-Frontispiece-photograph by Humphrey Spender, Bolton Museums, Art Gallery and Aquarium, Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council; p.86 Boris Karloff in The Mask of Fu ManchuyTAVI Film Stills, Posters and Designs; p.114 Peggy Kent with friends, collection of Peggy Kent; p. r 19 Deänna Durbin in Three Smart Girls, BFI Film Stills, Posters and Designs; p.x 22 Sheila McWhinnic and colleagues, collection of Sheila McWhinnie; p.142 The Astoria, . Finsbury Park, courtesy Cinema Theatre Association; p. 1 $9 Lili Damita, collection of Denis Houlston; p.röo Mädeleine Carroll, collection of Denis Houlston; p. 163 Marlene Dietrich in Bine Angel, courtesy the Ronald Grant Archive; p.199 Maytime publicity, courtesy Half Brick Images. Extracts from Crown-copyright records in the Public Record Office appear by permission of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
Last, but absolutely not least, I owe an enormous debt of thanks to all the 1930 cinemagoers who so generously shared their memories of rthe pictures' in interviews, questionnaires and letters; and to the staff who worked on and sustained the project between 1994 and 1996, without whose skill and dedication successful completion of the ethnographic research would have boon impossible. Joan Simpson, the project's secretary, transcribed hundreds of hours of interviews; and
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
á a    t, r. /
TMis book traces a-path through social history and the history of cincma,.through ideas about popular culture and jispjace in people's everyday lives, through memories, life stages and life narratives. The journey begins wjiorojio^onnl nm' collective memory meet in stories j about činenia and cji^nia^uií^l<í^bl^ wííät these meant, and still I mean, in the lives of the first movie-made scncrajJQjn1 - those men and women who grew up in the 1930s, whgnjgo iriig to the piet u res' was Britain's favourite spare-time activity. The stories, memories and histories in triechapters which follow emerge from a wide-ranging ejthnohjs^ri; I cd inqui^ conducted over a period_qf some
,ten_years.
f. In the 1930s, Britain boasted the hjgji«t^nujal__per; capita cinema jat^^anciLmJthiLWjarld; and cinema's popularity and ubiquity increased 'steadily throughout the decade, with admissions rising from 903 million in T934 (the first year for which reliable figures are available) to 1027 million in 1940 and a concurrent increase in the number of cinema scats per head of population. It has been estimated that some 40 per cent ol the Bndshpjoj^lari^ wenttojthe pictures once ajweek with a further 2JJHT cent going twice weekly or inorc. If this is accurate, something like two-thirds of th£PJ>pjilat^
the history of-i >lace in people's larratives. The meet, in stories ncant, and stifl those men and ures' was i
es and histories tethnohistqri-jeriod of someJ
capita cinema; ruity increased ?m 903 million liable) to 1027 >f cinema scats; 40 per cent of.: with a further Ue,■ something | itcmemagpers:"-
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
In his authoritative study of cinema and British society in the 1930s, The A%e of iFe D'redm'Pa&ceXl^
overview of contemporary data on patterns of cinema attendance, concluding that 'while a large proportion of the population at largo went to the cinema occasionally, the enthusiasts were young, working-class, urban 4rjdj3grjc^ also notes that as the decade
progressed, cinema widened its appeal to the middle ckssejj'his process of embourgeoiscment went hand-in-hand withlhTecoTio'rhy's recovery from the recession of the early r^os, the development of middle-class suburbs on the fringes of British cities and a boom in the building of 'supercinemas' in these new suburbs and in existing town and city centres.
Often at the leading edge of architecture and design, supcrcinemas offered - aside from respectability - a luxurious entertainment experience, bringing a taste of the modern and 'essentially democratic' England of J.B. Priestley's by-passes, suburban villas and cocktail bars to the less affluent parts of Britain.4 And yet cinema was not really a democratising force in these years. Social distinctions within the audience persisted everywhe^re,^mar^^tinj^ themselves in different types of cinema^ from the'fleapitsQtth^ebottom of the scale to the supercinemas j at the top. They are evident, too, in the rigoroush^str^iied orgamsation ola,udjtprium spac^ cinema might range from as little as 3d (just over ip) right up to z/6d (i2Vjp). Nonetheless, it is certainly true that for the British population at large, 'the pictures' was as familiar and taken-for-granted a part of daily life as television is today.
By 1930, Hoilyjvoc^hadjc^ cinema screens. Even though screenings of British picturese^xceeded tHelegaliy imposed quota and locally-made films were booked for longer periods than foreign ones, throughout the 1930s somejhjngJikcLSfiia:ii. in every^eiiiilnis-ihawjjb Britain were American.* Given this state of
^cinema. If the isS5II?l^ film? and stars was apparent, however, British tastes were highly distinctive.* Films aside, a cinema culture is iimqy casqshaped by the contextsand the mariner in which films arc consumed, and by the pcopTo wfto consul^
range of activities, circumstances and experiences peculiar to people's
—^Kj
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
We know j^}^J^<^£n^^ andwejmow^
also have some id^TitwirWritisli"cTnci™g(>ci\,t> cfisunarvc_grcfc£cnc^ uvFilms anclTtars, and which ktndsT>f ffln^wcfc most popular in Britain -j   ) during the 1930s. And yet in an important sense we hardly know these ~^ st^ ) Pe°pk at    ^e picturcgoing heyday of the 1930s generation lies within living memory, but the cinemagoers' own stories remain largely unrecorded. This state of affairs is in some measure attributable to a condescending attitude towards the 'ordinary' cmcmagoer; for in the 1930s, ertainly, the stereotypical portrait of the film fan was far from complimentary. She (for the fan is always assumed to be female) is a silly, empty-headed teenager, thoroughly duped by the cheap dreams purveyed by the picture palaces.7 It is hardly likely that filmgoers would have pictured themselves in such an unflattering light: this is clearly the tone of voice of the 'concerned' social commentator. What, then, did British film lovers n( tUf> 1010« male and female, brim* ro their cinemapoinir? WRat did
thcVtol^lrway fromjt? HaTKjdjd„gring to the.pictures fit in wid^ther aspects of their dail^yjiyesi school, ww-k, leisure, friendship, courtship ? In what ways was this generation formed^c^maHiow^wasdnema' experienc^^ generation ?
.v,v,,..   This book is not just about British cinema culture, nor is it only about S^j taiwjrji people who went to the pictures in a past that may now seem distant. ' [       "yThe questions that arise as soon as 'ordinary' media users are taken into ^ij^   account as makers of cultural history arc more fundamental, touching on ways of thinking about films, cinemas, and cinema cultures of all ^ kinds, past and present. Pjyotjjhcrejs the point at which_people come into contact with cinema - the moment, that is, of the reception and consumption of films. How do films and their consumers mJ5£^£^-n^ what, if anything can wejkno^ it has taken
place in thej^sj^L.,.
These questions^ methodological angles. A humanities-based studyof cinema, for example, will take films as fhc starting point tor exploring the cincma-consumcr relations!)iq, A&a discipline, film .studies modcjsjtsclf largely • on literary studies, and to this extent is predommand
4     Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
, of spectatorship in the cinema are predominantly about a spectator addressed oj^onstructedj^^ t^s^a^r-in-the text'.9
i The film.text remains central, then, and the question at issue is how a 'film 'speaks to' its spectators, how the meanings implicit in its textual .operations may be brought to light. This has nothing at all to do "with '■how the people watching a film might respond to it. |   Some confusion arises here because in everyday usage the terms J spectator, viewer and_audience are more-or-less interchangeable. It is i therefore worth restating the distinction between the implied spectator y-iqfjte^^^edcmicism, the spectator-in-the-text, and the 'social' ^|audience^ the flesh and blood human beings who go to cinemas to see p!films<Th^socialaujdjOTc^js theP^^}^SlSi^$^^^^^^^S^^SA^^ | media audience res.earch*and similar typlis^Trr^^ |wTTnTone ortwo sociologists made forays into the study of cinema and | its audiences during its heyday as a popular entertainment medium in { the 1940s, there is little interest in this area of inquiry among today's J media sociologists, for whom contemporary mass media like television
..........are the main focus of attention.10_______■___________        „...11._...1.1.,..
f   Tlicsedivjcrseobiccjts of inquiry ^ texts and audiences ~ produce I disjifnctrv^c^eptualisati^^ To^3ie"extent"Tr^
will downplay not only the reception of films by social audiences but also the social-historical milieux andlnHu^trlaTalCTmstitutional settings in wj^d^ms^arc pro^u^e^nctconsumed?'' The pra^tice^rTniin^^alysis las been called into question by critics who find its preoccupation with subtexts and hidden meanings antithetical to the spirit of a popular entertainment medium, irrelevant to the experience of the 'average' jcinemagoer, or overweening in its assumption that a spectajorial engage- \ '■ ment is somehow built into a film's textual organisation .^However, if \ .film analysis is sometimes conducted as if films were not produced and /consumed by people at particular times and places, social science-based (studies of media and their audiences routinely sideline media texts, /treating them as mere epiphenomena of their social, cultural, or industrial ^conditions of existence.
This division of labour produces a conceptual and methodological ^dualism^oftext a.nd context. - a diyorring of film texts from their industrial, cultural and historical cqntextsJ,.,a,nd...yice_v.er.sa7..andf this
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
One way of tackling the texj;r_context dualism is to treat texts and contexts alike as discursive practices: thus film texts may be conceptualised as discourses caughT'up In and informing contexts,, and, .vice versa, This' approach is applicable equally to contemporary and to historical studies of media reception.13
As a counterweight to text-centred approaches to film spectatorship, jtntet Staiger, for example, has proposed that the historical study of film reception could productively adopt a dialectical and 'context-activated' approach:
he reception studies I seek would be historical, would recognise the dialectics of evidence and theory, and would take up a critical distance on the relations between spectators and texts. It would not interpret texts but would attempt a historical explanation of tl^eyent o£^ntcrpming_atext." rtcO^~   For evidence, Staiger favours a range of historical sourcesof information
■  ' * it
-i-w! f    >i on responses to iiini»,uio»i muk"/.; ^-^..y^
------------
V
/Kühr
/ \
are then treated as discourses shaping the reception of films. This method t offers insight into the disomjvej^tyj^ of_aJ^in_'^ * which indeed is what Staiger understands by the context of a film's reception. Rather than the film text proposing the manner of its reception, the film's discursive context performs this work. However, while rightly emphasising the contextual aspects of film consumption, Uiil5£E^£^li?lfci^?lP_£(:ccss to the historical social audience. \   If neither text-centred norcontext^ictivated approaches to the study lof film reception admit the present-day or the historical social audience, and if media audience research admits little else, how might the cinema-goer's experience be investigated in its interaction with films and reception contexts? Media audience research takes a variety of forms, ranging from, large-scale investigations. based, around sttyctured;inter--; views or pre-coded questionnaires t^rougj^focus groups tc^sjGQajl-scale,. studies involving dej>tji^ntennew£
into media use conducted within a cuj^jrajjitoidjes relrlfiunvariably adopt research methods at thc^juju^ujatjrc^^ spectrum.
m njltti^l atittuiopology, research of this type cahTitseTf
Borrj_
ethnographic^,
^^^icnonary definition of ethnography is 'the scientific^senp^ron
6     Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
1-description can be conducted 'scientifically' only if the researcher has been fully immersed in the culture under observation. In its 'description of races and nations' sense, ethnographic inquiry today retains little of its former raison-d'etre in a post-imperial context, and postmodernity forces issues around cultural.othcrness, intcrstibjectivity and the fragmentation of identities to the top of the ethnographer's agenda. A postmodern, post-imperial ethnography must necessarily engage with the dialogic and discursive aspects of ethnographic inquiry, and also accept ^that it produces new meanings alongside its 'thick description' and interpretation of the 'flow of social discourse'.'5 Furthermore, while holding to these tenets, it "toust;'prfcimei&i&pscxiLAsJara^s .Qifford contaidjs^juxwe^ - and writing about culture f/^m&s^^
iThe object of ethnopafthicinqwEy.is no longer 'races.a.ijd nations', then, but^ujiure; andjncreask^ culture.
Cultural studies of contemporary media use have taken on board sonic of these protocols, notably a commitment to qualitative research and to giving serious attention to informants' accounts of their own worlds. To the extent that it is more catholic in its research methods than cultural anthropology and less self-conscious about the dialogic and discursive \ nature of ethnographic inquiry, though, cultural studies practices an ^attenuated version of ethnography.17 As to its objects, with very rare « exceptions, cultural studies ethnography concerns itself with contem-jporary life and contemporary, usually domestic, media. Among the \ exceptions, Jackie Stacey's study of the written memories of female
fansj>fj|h^n^
\    yf °f' t0 appropriate another, term from cultural anthropology, 't&no^
nf> n> n CJmL. consumjs^^^       work may be described as ^swn^i^^gt&^/-> \history^.
^^nohistoryAmer gj^ajjuiis. jinct^ield J>Wnqu iry-in £ hcx^4P,s,„ its.. o'bjeW^Em:gwemstorical study of non-literate cultures. This area had been neglected not only by cultural anthropology^ which tends not to concern it&tfSiafh h^^ records in these cultures- by hisiarians as w.ell.-Ethnohistory deployed cthno-jgraphic description and interpretation aloliieslde^oralliisrm-iro 1;nm-,;
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
vMpo-|£/    which are of greatest relevance to an liistwicj^stjjd^ >'v4f^    a and consumption are, firstly, the use of oral accounts as a research W !^ovl | resource and, secondly, the deploy mcntof sources andj^oarch protocols *ttq)C£_a J of_seyeral differentjkinds. An ctiinohisj^r^^
^♦yy^jX^wjl! aim to kcej>j,gxcxaLbat^^ itwuTldeatfy adopt a dialectical, djscursjyc,, and context-aware approach to its source inatm^ and Geertz, it will respect
informants as collaborators, and yet make no presumptions as to the transparency of their accounts, in the quest to transcend the text-context dualism, it will aim for inclusivity, bringing together issues around film texts and spectatorial engagements with questions relating to the social audience and the contexts of reception.
tiVi; /'. /' /The stories, histories and memories in this book are the product of a H'ji kJ*-\j \ wide-rangtrig^rffi i9^os cinema culture, conducted
y\ | £f:_ 1 over some ten ycaTsanXinvolving three parallel sets of inquiries. These vypO'CcK inquiries draw on the historian's traditional source materials, contem-CJ,!n7(^ t ^porary records of various kinds^n ethnographic^ amonjT
surviving cmemagoers ofthe 1930s; and on readings of selected 1930s *' films. Although historrcalTet^riog'raph'ic are normally conducted in separate disciplinary and methodological universes, the objective here is to follow the precepts of methodological triangulation, whereby more than one method is brought to bear on a single research problem. The three sets of inquiries have been conducted in parallel with the aim of producing an ethnohistorical account which encompasses all the various objects: the research design is set out in the appendix. Taken on its own, ejichjnenjuj^._]»od^^ andswhile each stoxy-Tnay-be-informative in i.ts.^wn right, and even offer. - new•Knowledge, it will fill in only a fraction.ofthe picture. ,Fora nuanced i" nni^^h    an<^ ^^S'^1^ understating of how cinema works historically, ^0fj_ _y ' culturally and experientially, it is essential to work at the point where
^        4 4^ <^^^^^grap^hlce!err^^)f this investigation co^ ^Al^r/jvf^ °breaTir|ifg:p^ whose aim is to enter imaginatively into the
^ely^^pjyed, the cinemagoers themselves; and as such it raises con-
I      I IS —"
8     Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
).vhö
of particular films and stars, say), foxjui-ttiiriojp^irj^ ^perknce of ctnemagoi^'must be the core and the raison-d'ctrcTTn consequence, cinemagoers arelnvolvecl in the resHrcE process arinTbrrn^ a^TsVah^WeirTcc^^ engine and thT product of
z    ,   ,\ instigation;:. ~
\    ■  ^tHS2S?i>W?,;,1fly.'.?X AftJ>?°4* uPon ^irect contact between rc-^ |UM ^1 iLCid^^ on building a relationship between them, and
Vor^/Xj^Qf on researchers treating informants and their stories with respect. If_thc /   ideal type of this relationship is participant observation, less sustained qualitative rcscardjjjneoimjj^^
irwoTvejvarying degrees of collaboration andshared productions of knowledge. As far as the principle of collaboration iii a non-participant observation contcxt is concerned^ g^n^^ry nitervia^offci- a~good zStefLM..point.'* But even at the other end of the qualitative spectrum,' where researchers and informants do not necessarily meet but make contact in other ways, a dialogic process is still at work, and the research encounter will still combine elements of collaboration and maieusis: for in all degrees of ethnographic, inquiry, besides actively listening the • researcher acts as midwife to the informant's stories;
In jeghnographic investigations in which informants are asked to recollect events from the past, tTaeir ^ *- ^
o&^e7ves7~1in~und period might have new things to
yield if it acknowledged other perspectives and p ositions i n th e cu ltu re' .M ^^St^SSJ^SfiSSS-^-marginalised people, to,the historic an entirely worthwhile objective, and indeed is one of the aims of the
present inquiry. But it is not its sole nor even its primary purpose; and.....
. in any case historical records groundcen^ 1>S^disTmcrtvg^f5^ material has been gathered
heTe^TSrr^the ^ of cinemaTor its ulersl^
, 7andjhe pla^e~c^ffl rn^oi^ shc^TigrTr^ri__^
jc^exri^^icsrto revitalise and complicate current thinking about the relarionsTupoetween cinema and its users, past and present; and, above all, to understand how rinpmajnemory works,, both in its own right.., and as a distinctive express ion of cultural memory. ~"~$K^-pltitfr-©l-tfic^^ ohistorTcaf investigation, ethnographic
''bit
7 /7
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
memory texts, or recorded acts of remembering, and that particular Questions arise concerning the evidential status of accounts which rely ohj^mentthc^
hindsight. However, memory is regarded here as neither providing access ,to, nor as representing, the past 'as it was^j^pjasj^aj^ Nn^diated, indccd^produccd, in the activity^of;^rern^mb_gx|ng. When
informants tell stories about their youthful filmgoing, they arc produci ng jnemoncTIrrijj^
In other words, they arc djo^ngjnej^ry work;L55SSL(1S their memories, performing ihem.__
Informants* accounts arc consequently treated not only as data put ^^^ggg^rjgj^S^^y>- Cphcernisas much with y^^^^^j^c^^About thcir_yoi»thful picturejg_QJng - with.(gTern^rv a^lscoursej^ as widi^p^f they savjibout it^memoryconte^^For an erstanding of cultural memory, it ^important to attend to the ways in wjhjcjij]iemorjM^ jgast^jpereonaj^^ and narration of these
memory stories; and in the present instance to the ways in which cinema figures in and shap.es these memories. Analvsjs of c^nographic materia^
is thus conducted on two levels: nVstfy^usjxeAt^dj^
^Jn_pebple s SFor the
"'"jngh^^
"cvcTyiia^y"^^ ____
Hght it sheds on thTnatur^and workings of cineim memory T_hjs inquiry,
discursive
in other words, is a^jnucji3iumLmemo.ry_as- it is^Lbojj^cirie^ia^ is about the intcrweav1ng"o]rThirtw^
This Ts~not a predictive or a deductive process. As~Clifford Geertz observes, ethnography's thick description and interpretation are continuous with one another, the ethnographer's 'double task' being
to uncover the conceptual structures that inform our subjects' acts, the 'said* of social discourse, and to construct a system of analysis in whose terms what is generic to those structures, what belongs to them because they arc what they are, will stand out against the other determinants of human behaviour.21
Oneof_riie_c^rn^niIa of the present inquiry is to observe the cj^ra^risttc tropes of mern^^^cineiTia merc^y> as they present thcmsdvcsmlnr^ these
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
ipersonal and past/present. They differ from each other most markedly the degree ortne mariner m'wh'ich the informant implicates herself or himself in the story and/or its narration.
ersonal discourse, for example, is characteristically delivered in
the^tmrd'Fgrstffl, distancing the informant from both the content of the account and its narration. This is the register of a witness momentarily standing aside from 'what happened' ('what stupid teenagers we were!'); or, where deployed throughout a testimony, it marks an informant's ■1 self-presentation as an expert witness or social commentator rather than as an involved p.micipjuuj^HolIywood was a dream factory'). At the X^gpposite extren^Tanecd^^^ first-person narration
\| h?'-/v£»)f^£^ with the informant constructing herself
^ or himself as a protagonist - more^enjban^n^j^^cJKj^f^^xa^g^^is^r^ j) jnjhe story ffremember one time^. ^). Injggga^e niemc^^isgpxirse^ "'Uesh- ^e most frequently occurring' typei'the^p^also'l^L'cates the w-V, /     informant in events, but both the events th^
■>^DS^ Solvementin;them are^epresented^atoudkSways went^witiP"" TV      my mother')- ancl o{^nKs^^WW(^^^i^hAn^ arou'rid^u'ts °i^A~        wanted to impressjhe_g|rjs').
™$Kr V ^^P^^esent register is about the way in which time is organised
pip
in niemory discourse, and may embrace a range of relationships betweerr'' narrator, st-oryjmdjjan^gr^n^ ^\'fi /  is a simple comparison^ things as
nfffc, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^J^^^J^^^takesThe fonnoT" ^.aPParently detached observation, and is always firmly rooted "inthe present, the moment of narration ftfie? film stars used to be so elegant then, tffcy^flfanTo^raffy'now*)L*Tnw'regTstcf'also'incwp^fatcsr accounts showing greater profundity of engagement on the informant's part with the activity of remembering and with the detail of what is j remembered. Often observed in orally transmitted life stories, this \ discursive register marks accounts in which informants, usually unaware ',of doing so, shift or 'shuttle' back and forth between past and present standpoints."
Informants' testimonies acquire their idiosyncratic qualities from the degree to which each~type of mcmofyj'djscourse^is^t^oyed andJtKe man'ner^^h^^rrfftl^b
Although observations oh these points should be regarded as suggestive
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
example, marks a number of the middle-class male informants' accounts. Testimonies characterised by anecdote, often assumed to be the mark of _ a^^o^storytcjfcrj come across as particularly vivid. Anecdote is relatively rare and.docs not-appear to be the preserve of any one social group, but one commentator has ..noted that this variant of memory discourse may have a specific function in working-class autobiography,^ actirig as "'awayTSTmcHiating~lYeTweci■>"rjiwer,"u nformu 1 atccT experience and more general or formulated truths; it does so by turning such truths into narrative and character'."
u /jj W   If jnj^ tiiey m      '     can ccrtairnS^]^ted    nnrrnrivt-s. Considered''thus, 'memory stories
\* ~shareanumberj^
^5nit»v^o,'T Tories, which are cJtenjwrated as ^''r^M^^.Yli^i^S^^P^h... ^ t v< 0 a k4^fragmen^ ots\ flashes. Memory texts often display; a m eta -
^^SST=^'^^^SxSMj^^s^r^ quality, and as such have more in common with poetrythan with tfaclassical.narrative with its Hneaxjjt^ ~ causaliTy^nTeloTunc. To borrow the terminology p£Formdist JiterHY. theory, the memory. te^gesses.plpt oyer m
and'wganisation arc typiatfTy as salient as its content, if not more so. Often, too, memory texts will deliver abrupt and vertiginous shifts of
setrjng_and/or narrative viewpoint .**......._..
The formal attributes of memory texts, too, often betrayjicollective^ imagination as well as embodying truths of a ^SI^2^S2^J^S^^_
'^^i^ss'^gi^^^, otz^9XP^^.^sm^£. ^ks'ssss^Jss^L.
formulaic language, stereotypes,' suggests the oral historian Aiessandro Portelli, 'can be a measure of the degree of presence of "collective view-BeJnllSSPFhus^^
textualise the stories people tell each other about the kinds of lives they Jiave.lcpVan^^ even.a mythic,',
quality which may be enhanced with every retelling. Such everyday -JUiyih^ma^^
\ ajncHTkeyl^ memory, of shaj^-fyji^
pluTosoper^dward Casey use's Hie word vc^rnmempraucji'jX) describe cojruriunaTacts oTmemory: with its senseofjijp^^icsr^cepjfjr^mpjr^ this form of remembering clearly has a ritualquality."
11
12    Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
starting-point, and interpretations arise from the material itself rather than from any hypotheses or a priori assumptions. This approach has the benefit of giving priority to what people say about their cincmagoing experiences and memories; and,sjnc^historicai^dfilrn textual materials •arcJikaarise-taiated discurstitfelV''iBifdinduccivoly1 it also offers a point of ''£riBD8^atiQ9::b^w^atlie three sets of inquiries, as well as a common methodological grounding for the ethnohistoncal investigation as a whole.
n*r£^$lcJ> The chapters which follow trace a trajectory from the earliest memories tK and jcjnema's placein them* throughto what for the majority of the i9*.os generation is a significant endpoint, the close of a chapter: 1939, and the rapid coming of age brought on by the outbreak of war. The landscapes of memory are populated by friends arid family, long gone; and from this lost everyday world many brief excursions into the out-of-thc-ordinary world of the pictures are ventured in memory. Cutting
_-—------across narratives of formation we witness moments of intensity - images,
fragments, vignettes - recollected as if ottttrftirne: daydreams of romance, keen longings for life to be somehow better; bodily memories of movement and activity - running, dancing; even out-of-body sensations.
The story starts out from the places of memory, the places of childhood: the paths that lead back into a past that is remembered as a landscape across which cinemas arc dotted like beacons in the night, and where all journeys begin and end at home.
Notes
1. This phrase is from the tide of Henry James Forman's digest of the findings of the 1930s Payne Fund Studies of the cinema audience in the USA, Our Movie-Made Children (New York: Macmillan, 1933).
2. H.E, Browning and A.A. Sorrcll, 'Cinemas and cinema-going in Great Britain', Journal of the Royal Statistical Sodcty^olzir^^ this revises the figures in Simon Rowson,'A statistical survey of the cinema industry in Gical Britain in ij>34'iJournal of the Royal StatisticalSociety,vol.99, no. 1 (1936), pp. 67-129. Sec also Rowson; TAcSocial and Political Influences of films, (London: British Kincniatograph Society,rj»3 9).
3. Richards, The Age of the Dream; Palace: Cinema and Society in Britain, 19.10-39 (London: Routlcdgc and Kegart Pauk 1984), p. 15. Sec also Andrew Davics, Leisure, GenderandPoverty: Working-class Culture in Salfordand Manchester, 1900-1939 (Milton y~-----r\---Tr„:.„»„:„, !>«,„„ .nA,v<twh™ Ci- Innnt. Wnrkirrtat Plav: A Social and
t^jos', Journal of Popular British Cinema, no. 2 (1999), pp. 3p—5 3• F°r contemporary data, sec, for example, E. Wight Bakkc, The Unemployed Man: A Social Study (London: Nisbel and Co Lul, 15)33); A.P. Jephcou, Cirls Growing Up (London: Faber and Faber, 1942); London School of Economics and Political Science, The New Survey of London Life and Labour, Vol ix: Life and Leisure (London: P,S. King and Son Ltd, 1935); John MacKic, The Edinburgh Cinema Enquiry: Being an investigation Conducted into the influence of the Film on Schoolchildren ami Adolescents in the City (lídinhur^li: Edinburgh Cinema Enquiry Committee, 1933);T.M. Middlcton, 'An Enquiry into the Use of Leisure Amongst the Working Classes of Liverpool' (MA, Un iversity of Liverpool, 1931).
4. J.B. Priestley, English Journey (London: William Heincmann Ltd, 1934), p. 401. For a social history of the period, sec C.L. Mowat, Britain Between the Wars, 1918-1940 (London: Methuen, 195 j).
j. Kristin Thompson has calculated that in 1930 US films took a 7; per cent share of the UK market and that the proportion remained similar throughout the decade: Thompson, Exporting Entertainment: America in the World Film Market, 1907-34 (London: BFI Publishing, 198$) p. 219. At 69.% per cent in 1930, 72.6 per cent in 1931 and 70 per cent in 1932, Margaret Dickinson and Sarah Street's figures are close to Thompson's: sec Dickinson and Street, Cinema and State: TkeJFilm^Industry and Government, 1927-14 {LxináoňTl&irTvird,-^
sec Tony Aldgate, 'Comedy, class and containment; the British domestic cinema of the 1930s', in British Cinema History, (eds) James Curran and Vincent Porter (London: Weidcnfeld and Nicolson, «983), pp. 257-271; Stephen Craig Shafer, 'Enter the Dream House: the British Film Industry and the Working Classes in Depression England, 1929-1939' (PhD, University of Illinois, 1982).
6. F;or details, sec Appendix; and A mu-iu- Kuhn, 'Cinema culture and femininity in the 1930s', in Nationalising Femininity, (eds) Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 180-2. See also John Sedgwick, Popular Filmgoing in 1930s Britain (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000). Although a distinctively national set of tastes is observable, there arc regional variations within this overall profile: see 'Census tells what film stars Britain prefers', Daily Express, 14 November 1933, p. 8; 'Conflicting tastes of British film-goers', World Film News, February 1937, pp. 6-7.
7. See Kuhn, 'Cinema culture and femininity in the 1930s', p. 177-8, in which it is argued that the stereotype undergoes a change towards the end of the 1930s.
8. Jackie Stacey, 'Textual obsessions: method, memory and researching female spectatorship', Screen, vol. 34, no. 3 (1993), pp. 260-274.
9. These debates originated within feminist film studies, ind are rehearsed in the special issue on 'The Spectatrix' of Camera Obscura, nos. 20-21 (1989).
10. For an informative discussion of cinema audience studies, see Jostein Gripsrud, 'Film audiences', in The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, (cd.)John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
11. Kuhn, 'Women's genres', Screen, vol. 25, no. 1 (1984), pp. 18-28.
12. For an interesting debate on this question, see Janet Staiger and Martin Barker, 'Traces of interpretations: Janet Staiger and Martin Barker in conversation', m Framework, no. 42 (2000), http;//www.frameworkonlinc.com/42Jstnb.htm {17 August 2001).
13. Annette Kuhn, Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909-192 j (London: Routlcdge, 1088V 00. 0-10: Tostcin Gripsrud, 'Moving images, moving identities: texts and contexts
1
í
14   Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory
14. Janet Staiger, Interpreting Films; Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema {Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, ^92), p. 81 (emphasis in original). See also Staiger, 'The handmaiden of villainy: methods and problems in studying the historical reception of film', Wide Angle, vol. 8, no. 1 (1986), pp. 19-28; Robe rtC. Allen, 'From exhibition to reception: reflections on the audience in film history', in Screen Histories: A Screen Reader, (cds) Annette Kuhn and Jackie Stacey (Oxford: Oxford University Press,. 1998), pp. 13-21; Staiger, 'The perversity of spectators: expanding the history of classical I lolly wood cinema', in Moving Images, Culture tuul the Mind, (v*l.) Ib Bondebjcrg(Luton: University of Luton Press, 2000), pp. 19-30;Staiger, 'Writing the history of American film reception', in Hollywood Spectatorship: Changing Perceptions of Cinema Audiences, (eds) Melvyn Stokes and Richard Mattby (London: British Film Institute, 2001). N
1 j( Clifford Gccrtz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973)1 pp. 6, 20. ........'.':,..:.,,.,.„:,.....
16. James Clifford, The Predicamant of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 9. Sec also -WritingCulturerThe Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, (cds) James Clifford and George E.Marcus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
17. See, for example, David Morley, Family Television: Cultural Power and Domestic Leisure (London: Comcdia, 1986); James Lull, Inside Family Viewing: Elhnogniphk Research on Television's Audiences (London: Comcdia, 1990); John Tulloch, Watching
^Television'Audiences: Cultural Theories and Methods (London: Edward Arnold, 2000); Jostein Gripsrud, 'Film audiences'.
18. Jackie Stacey, Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship (London: Routledge, 1994); Helen Taylor, Scarlett's Women: Gone With The Wind and its Female Fans (London: Virago Press, 1989). See also Richard de Cordova, 'Ethnography and exhibition: the child audience, the Hays Office and Saturday matinees', Camera Obscura, no. 23 (1990), pp. 91-106.
19. On the oral history interview, see Karl Figlio, 'Oral history and the Unconscious', History Workshop, no. 26 (1988), pp. 120-132; Luisa Passerini, 'Memory', History Workshop, no. 15 (1983), pp. T9j—T9<J; Alcssandro Poitclli, 'The peculiarites of oral history', History Workshop, no. iz (1981), pp. 96-107; Paul Thompson, 'Believe it or not: rethinking the historical interpretation of memory*, in Memory and History: Essays on Recalling and Interpreting Experience, (eds) Jaclyn Jeffrey and Gle.nace Edwall (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994), pp. 1-13, See also Michael Agar, 'Stories, background knowledge and themes: problems in the analysis of life history narrative', American Ethnologist, vol. 7, no. 2 (1980), pp. 223-239; Mark Freeman, Rewriting the Self: History, Memory, Narrative (London: Routledge, 1993).
20. AJison Light, Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism Between the Wars (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 6.
21. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, p. 27.
22. Aiessandro Portelli, '"The time of my life": functions of time in oral history', in The- Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991), pp. 59-76.
23. Simon Dentith, 'Contemporary working-class autobiography: politics of form, politics of content',.in Modern Selves: Essays on Modern British and American
Cinema Memory as Cultural Memory 15
memory', in Memory and Methodology, (ed.) Susannah Radstonc (Oxford: Berg, 2000), pp. 179-9. " --------= _— ■"■■r^^^
25. Portelli, "I'hc peculiarites of oral history', p. 99.
26. Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenotogical. Study (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, 1987), |>. 2i<>.
.liXi'^X,"^
244  Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain
Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain 245
|n KU ei* J/ \
informant's attitudes and outlook. Second interviews lasted about twohours.
A total of 186 hours of ,tapc-rccordcdJn.tcrviewnji,a^^d^ >-wns gnrM»^d-L, In all but a few cases (where sound was of very poor quality, for example), interviews with the core informants have been transcribed, together with the interviewer's fieldnotes.
To analyse the interview transcripts, thc^maKtatjyedjUa analysis^jftwaj; QSR NUD^IST (Non-numerical Unstructured DaiSmaexing Searching £nd ^^f^rizing^wS^^Jjrhis sokware.Auppoxts^Etoxing,..managing; in3exing>;.searching>..and theorising. mthfj^x^mmdm...A^^^^& was derived initially from transcripts of pilot interviews, and4ndj^ing_and_ analysis of the interviews began during the project's funded period.
X-^^^^^heckhst of questions for first interviews
■Cinemas attended: when, where, how often (describe; a cafe)? How often did the programmes change? -When did you go (day/time of day)?
* Time of year (summer/winter differences)? Cost/payment in kind?
* Differences in local cinemas: 'posh'? types of films?
* Go into town for the pictures?
» Staff: commissionaires; usherettes; managers; organist -Live acts? (singing to 'the dot')
* Who did you go with (friends/dates)?
« What did you wear (makeup? hairstyle? 'dress up'?) • •*Did you cat and/or drink during the films?
How did you/other people behave? (if enjoying/not enjoying the picture) » How did you feel? (beforc/during/after)
Favourite films: likes and dislikes; what makes a 'good' film or a 'bad' film "Favourite stars
Differences/changes in taste (Children/Mcn/Womcn)
* First experience of sound/colour pictures
* Shorts; news
t European films
» How did you choose films?
* In a fan club? collectphotos? read magazines? film society? ■ In a cinema club? (children?)
* Did you sing songs from the films? Buy sheet music?
9 Other forms of entertainment you enjoyed in the 1930s?
• Did you go to the cinema on holiday?
» What did going to the cinema mean to you (how did you feel?)
1.2 Questionnaire
In the course of thescareh for interviewees, hundreds of letters, eiiguiries and" offers of information were received from all oyer Britain, and it became apparent that the project had generated much more interest than could be accommodated through interviews alone. Though not originally planned, it was decided to ask those correspondents who were not interviewed tojtakj: part ^
The questionnaire was kept short and simple, and designed - through the choice, framing and ordering of questions - to stimulate recall of events and experiences of more than 60 years before. Questionnaires were sent out-in two batches: 129 in May 1995 and 97 in December 1995. Of these 226 questionnaires, a total of 186 were returned, representing a response rate of over $2 per cent. Questionnaires were processed using SPSS, a software package widely used for quantitative data in the social sciences.
Three-quarters of the questionnaire respondents Jound out about the) project through announcements in a local newspaper or a specialist? publicattoTrfoTTht~e1o^ was? planned or intended, respondents divided themselves more or less equally ^ as to gender: of the 186,91 (49 per cent) were male and 95 (51 per cent)/ female. Some six in ten were born between 1915 and 1924, the median year of birth being 1922 (Table 8). Nearly one-third of all respondents lived in the southeast of England during the 1930s (Table 9), and the?/ majority lived in larger towns and cities as opposed to small towns and rural areas.
Table 7: Mode of contact
	No.	%
Personal contact	13	(7-0
Local radio	4	{1.2)
Newspaper (eg Manchester Livening News)	75	(41.2)
Specialist press (eg Mature Tymes)	62	(34-0
Local history/film society	4	(2.2)
Unknown	14	03-*)