Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis

In januari 1996 lanceerde filmfanaat en computerfreak Col Needham imdb.com als commerciële website. Deze site die de afgelopen tien jaar is uitgegroeid tot een onmisbare bron voor meer dan veertig miljoen filmliefhebbers wereldwijd ontstond vanuit een persoonlijk archief of beter: een persoonlijke database. Als geheugensteuntje besloot Needham op 23-jarige leeftijd een inventaris op te maken van de duizend films die hij jaarlijks bekeek. Vrij snel gingen zijn vrienden en kennissen hun persoonlijke databases van acteurs regisseurs scenarioschrijvers plotbeschrijvingen enzovoort ook beschikbaar stellen en dit groeide uit tot de Internet Movie Database (imdb). In april 2006 zette filmhistoricus Karel Dibbets werkzaam aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam bij de afdeling Media en Cultuur zijn database Cinema Context <i>online</i>

This essay applies recent theoretical work on the concept of space by scholars in social and cultural geography to the history of the social experience of moviegoing. In it the author argues that the spatiality of the experience of cinema needs to be foregrounded in film history and he uses his research on the history of moviegoing in the American South during the so-called 'Jim Crow' period of racial apartheid (1890-1965) to demonstrate what a re-theorized notion of cinema spatiality might add to film historiography more generally

This article discusses the status and position of the Cinema Context database in outlining a future research agenda for the comparative study of cinema cultures. The authors argue that the specificity of for instance Dutch national cinema culture cannot be explained solely by using the data and analytic tools offered by Cinema Context. Contextual factors and phenomena that are not accounted for in the sphere of the database have contributed significantly to the shaping of the characteristics of (Dutch) cinema culture. In order to support this claim the article discusses three examples of such factors and phenomena: local club life in the province of Limburg; press discourse on the dominant position of Jews in the Dutch film business; and differences in the representation of the social world of women in early Dutch talking pictures. The Cinema Context database and research into such wider contexts surrounding the database are complementary perspectives for investigating the history of cinema cultures

Whencinema attendance per capita in different European countries is compared the Netherlands clearly stands out. With regards to moviegoing our country has consistently maintained a unique position at the bottom of the tables in the past century. The traditional explanation for this phenomenon is the longstanding cliché of the Calvinistic heritage of the nation. This article makes a case for a different view. It argues that integration of cinema in Dutch society is trailing behind as a result of the refusal of religious and ideological communities to create their own cinemas as opposed to holding exclusive shows for their members. The article discusses how the public sphere was colonized and neutralized by these segregated communities of Protestants Catholics and socialists who dominated Dutch politics and society during the first half of the 20th century. Furthermore it shows how the very representation of ideological segregation was banned from the cinema screen and how it became a taboo in Dutch production of feature films. Finally it explains why moviegoing suffered from the fact that Dutch cinemas were treated as a neutral non-aligned outcast by the main strongholds of society

Film Studies has often seemed to be hostile to the empirical analysis of cinema. This may be due to its underlying concern to validate cinema as an art and so reject the bulk of routine films and their characteristics rather than study cinema as an industry and entertainment medium. In the 1940s Sadoul and Low proposed important new research paradigms but their example was largely ignored until the work of Salt and of Bordwell Staiger and Thompson in the 1980s which was admired but hardly imitated. Today new trends in metrics in 'localism' and using methodologies drawn from other disciplines offer the hope that Film Studies will fulfil its early promise

Beginning with a consideration of recent discussions on the state of film history this essay explores some aspects of the relationship between the historiography of cinema and broader currents of contemporary historiography including the poststructuralist critique of history as a realist fiction. It engages with what Colin MacCabe has recently called 'the weaknesses and insularity' of contemporary film studies by advocating the development of histories of cinema that place audiences rather than films at their centre and integrate the quantitative methods of social history with the concrete and particular conditions of experience that are the predominant concern of micro-history

Apart from a few exceptions local cinema histories have only appeared in France in the course of the last 35 years of the twentieth century when film historiography in general seemed to be in decline. This essay deals with the nature of these local studies their very limited access their interest and their function. More generally this essay addresses this issue with regards to the relation between micro-history and macro-history

Op 1 oktober was het precies zestig jaar geleden dat de Britse rechter Sir Geoffrey Lawrence president van de internationale militaire rechtbank in Neurenberg het vonnis uitsprak tegen 21 van oorlogsmisdaden en misdaden tegen de mensheid verdachte nazi-kopstukken. Naar aanleiding van dit jubileum waren enkele documentaires over het Neurenberg-tribunaal te zien waarin de geschiedenis van het tribunaal in beeld werd gebracht aan de hand van onder meer archiefbeelden van de zittingen. Deze archiefbeelden zijn het resultaat van een noviteit in de rechtspraak: de beslissing van de hoofdaanklager Robert H. Jacksonomde zittingen van het proces vast te laten leggen op film en geluidsdragers zodat het proces gedocumenteerd kon worden voor het nageslacht. Niet minder revolutionair was Jacksons beslissing om documentaire filmbeelden toe te laten als bewijsmateriaal ter ondersteuning van de aanklachten van samenzwering en misdaden tegen de mensheid

De filmtijdschriften zijn in te zien in de bibliotheek van het Nederlands Filmmuseum in Amsterdam de andere tijdschriften in de meeste universiteitsbibliotheken