Cultural Memory and British Cinema-going of the 1960s

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I will investigate and interrogate the cultural memories of a diverse group of British sixties cinemagoers in order not only to shed light on the social and cultural history of cinema but also to contribute to a wider reappraisal of British society and culture of the time. Interpreting the 1960s, historians have traditionally seen them as a pivotal era, associated with a cultural revolution in which family, sexual, gendered, racial and class relationships all changed as old conventions were discarded (Jonathon Green, 1998; Arthur Marwick, 1998). Yet the assumption on the part of both politicians and historians that the sixties were an era of radical change has been challenged by Dominic Sandbrook (2005), who argues that there were strong elements of continuity with post-1945 Britain and that the changes that did occur were slow, painful and often controversial. Instead of embracing radicalism and experimentation, much of British society remained conventional and conservative. I will aim to shed light on this debate by analysing the memories of cinemagoers. Not only was cinema in many respects representational, portraying the class, gendered, sexual and cultural changes of the time, it was also believed by many writers on film to have emblematic qualities, embodying a wide range of society's hopes, myths, fears and fantasies. Moreover, it was still a mass entertainment, bringing together people from varied social and cultural backgrounds. The analysis of memories of cinemagoing offers the possibility of contributing new perspectives on 1960s social and cultural history by engaging with memory and lived experience. The project's methodology will be based on the collection of individual memories of 1960s cinemagoing through questionnaires, individual interviews and focus group discussions. In the beginning, subjects will be self-selected: they will volunteer to complete a detailed questionnaire on the project website in the main because they have seen advertisements or letters announcing the project in a range of newspapers and periodicals (some may alternatively hear of the website because of the publicity surrounding its launch). Once the questionnaires have been completed and analysed, the project team will decide which respondents will also be invited to personal interviews or to become members of focus groups. Those decisions will be informed by the need to have a sample that is balanced in gender terms and as wide as possible in terms of age, social class, and ethnicity. In terms of scholarly output, the project will result in three conference papers, two scholarly articles, and a book.In addition to the academic rationale for the project, a major priority will be the engagement of a wider public. This will be achieved for the most part through a programme of screening major 1960s films (e.g. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Victim, A Kind of Loving, Darling, Alfie) at 11 venues across the UK. 9 of these screenings will be followed by a discussion on the film and the 1960s themselves moderated by the Principal Investigator and Research Assistant. Two screenings in the final year of the project will be at larger venues and followed by a debate on the memory and legacy of the 1960s involving historians and film scholars. Moreover, given the enthusiasm of many people for the cinema, it is probable that the book based on the project will have a broader circulation than most scholarly books. For the same reason (considerable public interest in cinema and cinemagoing), it is possible that the project will give rise to radio and television documentaries.