The Appreciation of Film: The Postwar Film Society Movement and Film Culture in Britain

by Richard Lowell MacDonald

Overview

This book offers the first full account of the film society movement in Britain and its contribution to post-World War Two film culture. It brings to life a lost history of alternative film exhibition and challenges the general assumption that the study of film began with university courses on ‘Film Studies’.
Showing how film societies operated and the lasting impression they made on film culture, The Appreciation of Film details the history of film education in Britain.  The book illuminates the changing relationship between volunteer-run societies and professionalised agencies promoting film art such as festivals, specialist commercial distributors and public bodies such as the British Film Institute.
Drawing on original archival research and oral history interviews the book acknowledges the vigour and dedication of volunteer film society activists and presents contemporary readers with a record of their achievement.
Written in an accessible style, this is a study of 16mm projectors, associational life and the making of film culture in Britain. It reclaims the marginalised civic cinephilia of volunteer film society activists whilst providing an alternative narrative of the emergence of film study in Britain.

 

 

 

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780859899895
Publisher:	University of Exeter Press
Publication date:	07/31/2019
Series:	Exeter Studies in Film History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Richard Lowell MacDonald is a lecturer in the Media and Communications department at Goldsmiths, University of London. His specific research interests include the history of cinema and visual culture, institutions of film criticism and pedagogy, the aesthetics of documentary and ethnographic film, and historic and contemporary modes of moving image exhibition beyond the cinema theatre.

 

 

Richard Lowell MacDonald is a lecturer in the Media and Communications department at Goldsmiths, University of London. His specific research interests include the history of cinema and visual culture, institutions of film criticism and pedagogy, the aesthetics of documentary and ethnographic film, and historic and contemporary modes of moving image exhibition beyond the cinema theatre.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Enthusiasm and Civic Duty: The Emergence of the Film Society Movement
2 The Postwar Transformation of the Film Society Movement
3 Popularising Film Appreciation: Roger Manvell’s Film
4 The British Film Institute, the Film Archive and Film Society Programming
5 Making the World Our Home: Affirmative Internationalism and Film Societies
6 Film Society Criticism, Middlebrow Taste and New Cinemas
7 Film Societies, Universities and the Emergence of Film Studies
Conclusion: What Was Film Appreciation?
Notes
Bibliography
Index

 

 

Editorial Reviews

"This is an interesting project, based on thorough research, dealing with a topic that deserves to be better known and better documented." Professor Andrew Higson, Dept. of Theatre, Film and Television, University of York "This book serves as a valuable companion to an emerging literature on the history of film studies, both internationally and specifically within Britain." Professor Richard Maltby, Dept. of Screen and Media, Flinders University

From the Publisher

This book offers an engaging and accessible history of British film society culture. It makes a substantial and very valuable contribution to our understanding of the film society movement and the development of a British intellectual film culture. It will become an important point of reference.

Journal of Film Preservation - Melanie Selfe

"An interesting project, based on thorough research, dealing with a topic that deserves to be better known and better documented."

Andrew Higson

Finalist for the Richard Wall Memorial Award for an exemplary work in the field of recorded performance

Richard Wall Memorial Award

MacDonald and his thoughtful monograph, with patience and sincerity, invite us to acknowledge the appreciation of film among the ordinaries, and their important effort in shaping the film culture we enjoy today.

Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television - Hiu M. Chan

"This book serves as a valuable companion to an emerging literature on the history of film studies, both internationally and specifically within Britain."

Richard Maltby