Learning on ScreenCultural Memory and British Cinema-Going of the 1960s
Do you have memories of going to the cinema in Britain in the 1960s? If so, then the team running an AHRC-funded research project at University College London would love to hear from you. Here the project’s director, Dr Melvyn Stokes, and Research Associate, Dr Matthew Jones, explain why a study of 1960s cinema-going matters and how you can make a vitally important contribution.
Melvyn Stokes:
As a baby-boomer myself, most of the early experiences of cinema I can recall were in the 1960s. So when, four years ago, I was asked to give a talk on cinema of the 1960s to UCL alumni who had graduated in that decade, I jumped at the chance. I spoke about both British and American films and showed a number of clips. I was surprised, at the end of the talk, when a large group of people clustered round to discuss not only the films I’d mentioned and others but also their personal memories of cinema-going in London in the 1960s. Many of the recollections were vivid, and particularly those dealing with the location of favourite cinemas, the rituals of going there and the people they went with. Having edited four books on audiences and reception for the British Film Institute, I was already interested in the history of cinema-going, but this experience made me realise that there are innumerable stories out there waiting to be told.
These so far unrecorded, personal histories of visiting the cinema are what the project is about. We’d like to discover how people remember film-going in the 1960s, not just in London but in the country as a whole. (Many of my own memories of the time relate to going to the cinema in my Yorkshire hometown of Wakefield and seaside resorts such as Bridlington.) We don’t care about people’s background, or what jobs they had or their type of education — it’s the memories that count for us.
Why focus on the sixties? Mostly because the sixties have a reputation as a time of great change — in fashion and morals (Carnaby Street, Mary Quant, the Profumo case and ‘swinging London’), music (the Beatles and Rolling Stones, among many others), law (the legalisation of abortion and homosexual adult relationships, both in 1967) and politics (the first Labour government since 1951). But was it really a decade of radical change? We think that people’s memories of the films they saw and whether or not they tapped into the experiences of their own lives will shed a lot of light. Many writers on cinema have regarded films as emblematic, embodying many of a society’s hopes, myths, fears and fantasies. We have no idea if that is true or not of cinema in sixties Britain, but hope perhaps to find out.
Did people prefer British or Americans films? Who were the stars they liked or disliked? What types of film did they really prefer? Who did they go to watch films with? Parents, friends, dates (a social survey in 1965 suggested that over half of all young people went to a cinema on a first date) or children? What do they remember of the cinema-going experience itself? Did they or people around them smoke? Did they talk during performances? Did they eat or drink? Was there a regular night (or nights) when people went to the cinema? By answering questions such as these, our contributors are helping us build up a detailed picture of cinema-going in 1960s Britain.
