Amateur cinema: history, theory and genre (1930-80)

[摘要] This thesis, Amateur Cinema: History, Theory, and Genre (1930-1980), draws largely onprimary material from the Scottish Screen Archive and related museum sources. The projectestablishes a critical dialogue between university-based Film Studies and the archive sector, viaa series of case studies of influential groups, individuals, and movements. Prefaced by achapter entitled 'Theorising Amateur Film: Limitations and Possibilities' detailing thedomination of amateur cinema studies by discussion of the 'home mode', I suggest that workto date has obscured an understanding of films made by cine-clubs within the highly organisedfilm culture of the British amateur cine movement. The main body of the thesis consists of fourchapters exploring the most popular generic practices of 'institutionalised' amateurfilmmakers, focusing on: art cinema, the 'film play', community filmmaking, and the amateurheritage picture. I argue that these production strands were formed by discourses circulatingwithin amateur film journals, 'how to do it' manuals and amateur film festivals. Amateurcinema was viewed throughout as a parallel cine movement existing alongside professionalpractices, enjoying an ambivalent relationship to inherited professional standards. The finalchapter, 'Amateur Film Re-Located', proposed a fresh theorisation of 'local' amateurproduction within a national film culture, marked by distinctly cosmopolitan connections.

[发布机构] University:University of Glasgow;Department:School of Culture and Creative Arts

[关键词] PN Literature (General)