Amateur Film: meaning and practice, 1927-77 by Heather Norris Nicholson, 2012
British book, primarily historical on the changes in the use of small gage cameras in England over this fifty years. Book can be a bit repetitive but each chapter ends with philosophical (although not particularly theoretical or critical) summaries and observations.
Chapter 1 is an introduction.
Page 6, "Typically, Britain's early hobby enthusiasts were affluent, white, middle-class and male"
Page 8, for some cine users, being there, witnessing and personal filmmaking was an antidote to the tide of visual factual and fictive narratives now washing through many people's lives and localities. For others, trying their hand at fictional storytelling brought pleasure and companionship"
Chapter 2 - clubs, membership trends discussed. Notable is how class boundaries are broken.
Page 53 "Clubs responded differently to developments in sound and tape-slide production. Some critics saw the latter, which involved projecting slides with accompanying music or spoken commentary, as a hybrid visual distraction from film production, even though it gained its own dedicated competition in 1970.
Page 67, "The Russian director Pudovkin provided an inspiration, 'Amateurs organize yourselves' for the first national conference of amateur cinematograph society of Great Britain in Ireland (1927).
Page 79, [Watson writes] "start imitating the professionals ... and you're the worst kind of amateur because you will have been doing a clog dance where angels fear to tread"
Chapter 4 is worthwhile (family life as fact and fiction)
Page 92, Rachel (aged 2 and a bit) Discovers England (1937) by Charles Chislett: "rehearsed many of the apparently carefree scenes". "accompanied by a carefully scripted commentary".
Page 99, "Family memories on film are about making good times last. ... Remembering is also about forgetting".
Page 103, non-seqitor about shipping film in northern Canada: "In remote regions in Canada, for instance, months might elapse before films returned on one of the supply or hospital ships that linked scattered Inuit settlements in the High Arctic"
Page 108, "The on-screen presence of family members no longer alive connected past to present, and th living to the dead. Home screenings accustomed children to loss and change over time too. Young children possibly grew to recognize relations whom they visited rarely via their screen identities. Watching films sent from relations living elsewhere maintained families spatially fragmented by war, migration or education and occupation.
"Being in charge of the camera changed the social dynamics too as one person was out of the picture framing others. Thus camerawork, for all its selectivity, also discloses subtleties about family narratives, identities and memory-shaping."
Page 154-155, Sam Hanna docs on disappearing traditional craft practices filmed for posterity. Find some?
Page 181-182, in 1939, filming from window of car was common.
Page 189, voyeurism and exoticism in travel films "conferred status upon filmmakers who ventured into alien spaces" ... "wilst also being problematic in terms of appropriation and objectification"
Page 199, woman filmmaker Lucy Fairbank (for Kyath)
Page 211, 1933 films by Harold and Sidney Preston at Stockport Infirmary - "children wearing underwear and goggles receive 'sunlight treatments' from portable x-ray equipment in the violet ray department"
Page 215, "a mouche que veux-tu" abouit alcoholic waging war on flies.
Page 231, Filmmakers who produced films with a message represent a social group that, in many cases, felt that their right to look was unquestionable. Concerns over authority and the politics of representation were not preoccupations for the bulk of these filmmakers.
Page 245 - media archaeology discussed.
British book, primarily historical on the changes in the use of small gage cameras in England over this fifty years. Book can be a bit repetitive but each chapter ends with philosophical (although not particularly theoretical or critical) summaries and observations.
Chapter 1 is an introduction.
Page 6, "Typically, Britain's early hobby enthusiasts were affluent, white, middle-class and male"
Page 8, for some cine users, being there, witnessing and personal filmmaking was an antidote to the tide of visual factual and fictive narratives now washing through many people's lives and localities. For others, trying their hand at fictional storytelling brought pleasure and companionship"
Chapter 2 - clubs, membership trends discussed. Notable is how class boundaries are broken.
Page 53 "Clubs responded differently to developments in sound and tape-slide production. Some critics saw the latter, which involved projecting slides with accompanying music or spoken commentary, as a hybrid visual distraction from film production, even though it gained its own dedicated competition in 1970.
Page 67, "The Russian director Pudovkin provided an inspiration, 'Amateurs organize yourselves' for the first national conference of amateur cinematograph society of Great Britain in Ireland (1927).
Page 79, [Watson writes] "start imitating the professionals ... and you're the worst kind of amateur because you will have been doing a clog dance where angels fear to tread"
Chapter 4 is worthwhile (family life as fact and fiction)
Page 92, Rachel (aged 2 and a bit) Discovers England (1937) by Charles Chislett: "rehearsed many of the apparently carefree scenes". "accompanied by a carefully scripted commentary".
Page 99, "Family memories on film are about making good times last. ... Remembering is also about forgetting".
Page 103, non-seqitor about shipping film in northern Canada: "In remote regions in Canada, for instance, months might elapse before films returned on one of the supply or hospital ships that linked scattered Inuit settlements in the High Arctic"
Page 108, "The on-screen presence of family members no longer alive connected past to present, and th living to the dead. Home screenings accustomed children to loss and change over time too. Young children possibly grew to recognize relations whom they visited rarely via their screen identities. Watching films sent from relations living elsewhere maintained families spatially fragmented by war, migration or education and occupation.
"Being in charge of the camera changed the social dynamics too as one person was out of the picture framing others. Thus camerawork, for all its selectivity, also discloses subtleties about family narratives, identities and memory-shaping."
Page 154-155, Sam Hanna docs on disappearing traditional craft practices filmed for posterity. Find some?
Page 181-182, in 1939, filming from window of car was common.
Page 189, voyeurism and exoticism in travel films "conferred status upon filmmakers who ventured into alien spaces" ... "wilst also being problematic in terms of appropriation and objectification"
Page 199, woman filmmaker Lucy Fairbank (for Kyath)
Page 211, 1933 films by Harold and Sidney Preston at Stockport Infirmary - "children wearing underwear and goggles receive 'sunlight treatments' from portable x-ray equipment in the violet ray department"
Page 215, "a mouche que veux-tu" abouit alcoholic waging war on flies.
Page 231, Filmmakers who produced films with a message represent a social group that, in many cases, felt that their right to look was unquestionable. Concerns over authority and the politics of representation were not preoccupations for the bulk of these filmmakers.
Page 245 - media archaeology discussed.
No comments:
Post a Comment