In amateur hands: Framing time and space in home-movies

History Workshop Journal

Volumn 43, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 197-212

  Nicholson, Heather Norris ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0004482934     PISSN: 13633554     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hwj/1997.43.199     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, London, 1994, p. 5.
2. Personal communication. Micheline Morisset, Senior Archivist, Film and Sound Archives Division. National Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
3. Archivists readily supply examples of the diverse ways in which material joins their collections. Since being set up in 1986, the Yorkshire Film Archive has salvaged much material from house clearances, old cinemas, attics, cellars, store rooms and rubbish skips through Yorkshire.
4. Pamela Wintle, and John Homiack, Guide to the Collections. 100th Anniversary of Motion Pictures. Commemorative Ethnographic Edition, Washington, 1995, p. 5.
5. John Short, Imagined Country, Routledge, London, 1991, pp. 178-196;
6. Stuart Aitken, 'I'd Rather Watch the Movie than Read the Book', Journal of Geography in Higher Education 18:3, 1994, pp. 291-307.
7. See for example: British Universities Film Council, Film and the Historian. Conference Proceedings, London, 1968;
8. Paul Smith (ed.), The Historian and Film, Cambridge, 1976.
9. The Journal of Contemporary History focused on the subject in volumes 18:3, 1983
10. and The Journal of Contemporary History 19:1, 1984.
11. Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, London, 1994, p. 347;
12. Elizabeth Lebas, 'When There was a Cinema in Every Street', History Workshop Journal 39 1995, pp. 42-66.
13. See for example, Gillian Rose, Feminism and Geography. The Limits of Geographical Knowledge, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 86-112;
14. Christine Whitney, Women, Art and Society, London, 1990 pp. 7-36;
15. Laura Mulvey, Visual and Other Pleasures, London, 1989;
16. Susan Ford, 'Landscape Revisited: A Feminist Reappraisal', in Chris Philo, (ed.), New Words, New Worlds: Reconceptualising Social And Cultural Geography, Lampeter, 1991, pp. 151-155.
17. Nick Denzin, The Cinematic Society. The Voyeur's Gaze, London, 1995, p. 23.
18. Doreen Massey, 'Power-geometry and a Progressive Sense of Place', in Jon Bird, Barry Curtis, Tim Putnam, George Robertson and LisaTickner (eds), Mapping the Futures. Local Cultures, Global Change, London, 1993, pp. 61-69.
19. Archival material in the Japanese American Museum, Los Angeles, California offers a particularly striking example. Japanese immigrants filmed themselves participating in the lifestyle of middle-class America from the 1920s onwards and also documented their later experiences in internment camps. The Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington contains footage from minority groups in the southern United States from the early 1960s.
20. Among the collection of films made by Richard S. Finnie, who was working for the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch of the Hudson Bay Company there are images which show an Inuk looking through Finnie's movie camera at another Inuk posing for the camera, Pangnirtung, Baffin Island (1929). Source: National Archives of Canada. Negative no. PA100721.
21. Discussion is based upon footage from the Yorkshire Film Archive (YFA), Ripon, and from film archives represented by participants at the annual conference of the Association Européenne des Inédits [AEI] Passage de la Bourse, 6000 Charleroi, Belgium at Brest (1994) and Nancy (1995).
22. See for example: George Robertson, Melinda Marsh, Lisa Tickner, Jon Bird, Barry Curtis, and Tim Putnam (eds). Travellers' Tales. Narratives of Home and Displacement, London 1994;
23. Mary Pratt, Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation, London, 1992;
24. Shirley Foster, Across New Worlds. Nineteenth Century Travellers and their Writings, New York & London 1990 pp. 1-26.
25. The Charles Joseph Chislett film collection, together with a vast collection of correspondence, lecture scripts, and other papers, was given to the YFA in the early 1990s.
26. Chicago. Edited film clips 1924-1932, YFA.
27. A longer analysis of the travelogues within the Charles Joseph Chislett collection is in progress for future publication.
28. Archival film presented by Susan Aasman, University of Groningen at AEI, Brest (1994);
29. see also Victor G. Kiernan and Harvey Kaye, Imperialism and its Contradictions, London, 1995.
30. J. Ryan, 'Imperial Landscapes: Photography, Geography and British Overseas Exploration, 1858-1872,' in Morag Bell, Robin Butlin and Michael Heffernan (eds), Geography and Imperialism, 1820-1940, Manchester, 1995. pp. 53-79.
31. Charles Chislett Collection, YFA (unpublished research).
32. Family film presented by Susan Aasman, University of Groningen at AEI, Brest (1994).
33. St George's Church, YFA. I discuss this film more extensively in 'At Ilkley they Sell Lovely: Regional Experience and Memory', in Seeing is Believing. Amateur Film as Evidence, Amsterdam, 1994 (revised edition 1996).
34. John Nicholson, Present Day Greece And Its Mediterranean Islands (1948).
35. This film was made by a Greek immigrant to the United States specifically to inform Chicago audiences about the 'true qualities and nature of the Greek People', Human Studies Film Archive, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. [Presented by Pamela Wintle at AEI, Nancy (1995)]
36. Walter Strohmenger, Child Evacuees in Ohio, USA, October 1941, (1941).
37. Footage presented by Kay Gladstone, Film Archivist, Imperial War Museum, London, at AEI, Nancy (1995).
38. Robin Butlin, Historical Geography. Through the Gates of Time and Space, London, 1993, pp. 73-97; 131-145.
39. Dale Days (1940), YFA.
40. William G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape, London, 1955, pp. 231-232;
41. Robin Butlin, Historical Geography, London, 1993 pp. 133-134.
42. Heather Morris Nicholson, 'Framing the World in Home Movies: Rethinking Meanings in Amateur Film' AMIA Newsletter Autumn, 1995, pp. 16-17.
43. James Duncan and 'Ideology and Bliss. Roland Barthes and the Secret Histories of Landscape', in Trevor Barnes and James Duncan (eds), Writing Worlds. Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Representation of Landscape, London, 1992, pp. 18-37.
44. Hugh Prince, 'Art and Agrarian Change, 1710-1815', in Denis Cosgrove and Stephan Daniels (eds), The Iconography of Landscape, Cambridge, 1988 pp. 98-118;
45. Stephan Daniels, Fields of Vision, Cambridge, 1993 pp. 1-10;
46. Donald Meinig (ed.), The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes, New York, 1979 pp. 164-192.
47. Deanna Kingston (1996) 'Remembering our Namesakes, Inuit Oral History and Missionary Film'. Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. Unpublished conference paper at 'Screening Culture: Constructing Image and Identity', 26-27th October 1996, University College of Ripon and York St John. York England.
48. Many film archives in Britain have not yet gathered much footage representing ethnic and visible minority experiences. The YFA is currently exploring ways to overcome this gap in its later film stock.
49. Aboriginal-run cultural centres, including the Native Heritage Centre, Duncan, Kwagiulth Museum and Cultural Centre, Quadra Island and the U'Mista Centre, Alert Bay, all in British Columbia, Canada use archival footage in their interpretation facilities.
50. This is developed in greater detail in Heather Norris Nicholson, 'Cultural Centres or Trading Posts', Museums Journal, 8:2, 1992, pp. 31-34
51. and in 'Collusion, Collision or Challenge?: Indigenous Tourism in British Columbia, Canada', in Peter Murphy (ed.), Quality Management in Tourism, Chichester 1997, pp. 115-136.
52. A recently completed partnership between Inuit and the National Archives of Canada produced a valuable exchange of ideas and information on such issues as storage, use and interpretation of archival footage (personal communication).