Cinema, audiences and modernity: new perspectives on European cinema history

摘要

Cinema, Audiences and Modernity is part of a ‘new cinema history’ movement within film and screen studies. This movement aims to look beyond the understanding of cinema’s history as concerned only with films and their production, and instead concentrate on the social experience of cinema. It has as its aim a rewriting of cinema history ‘from below’ – from the perspectives of its audiences. This collection sheds new light on the cinema and modernity debate by confronting established theories of the role of the modern cinematic experience with new empirical work on the social experience of cinemagoing, film audiences and film exhibition in Europe. The case studies also provide a ‘how to’ compendium of current methodologies for researchers and students working on film and media audiences, film and media experiences, and historical reception. The contributions to this book reflect on the very different ways in which cinema has been accepted, rejected or disciplined as an agent of modernity in neighbouring parts of Europe, and on how cinemagoing has been promoted and regulated as a popular social practice at different times in twentieth-century European history.