This volume addresses the underscrutinised topic of cinema newsreels. These short, multi-themed newsfilms, usually accompanied by explanatory intertitles or voiceovers, were a central part of the filmgoing experience around the world from 1910 through the late 1960s, and in many cases even later. As the only source of moving image news available before the widespread advent of television, newsreels are important social documents, recording what the general public was told and shown about the events and personalities of the day. Often disregarded as quirky or trivial, they were heavily utilised as propaganda vehicles, offering insights into the socio-political norms reflected in cinema during the first half of the twentieth century. The book presents a range of current research being undertaken in newsreel studies internationally and makes a case for a reconsideration of the importance of newsreels in the wider landscape of film history.

Autorentext

Ciara Chambers is Lecturer in Film and Screen Media, University College Cork, Ireland, author of Ireland in the Newsreels (2012) and screenwriter of the television series Éire na Nuachtscannán (TG4, 2017). She is a member of the IAMHIST Council, Associate Editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television and a member of the Editorial Board of Alphaville Journal of Film and Screen Media.

Mats Jönsson is Professor in Film Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has written three monographs, edited seven anthologies, and has published several international articles. He is a member of the editorial boards for the interface filmarkivet.se and for the book series Media History Archives.

Roel Vande Winkel is Assistant Professor in Film & TV Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium and at LUCA School of Arts, Belgium. He is Associate Editor of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television and is co-editor of Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World (with Daniel Biltereyst) and Cinema and the Swastika: The International Expansion of Third Reich Cinema (with David Welch).

Inhalt

1. Introduction (Ciara Chambers, Mats Jönsson and Roel Vande Winkel)

2. Wofull News from Wales, Details at 11: News, Newsreels, Bulletins and Documentaries (Brian Winston)

3. The Newsreel Audience (Luke McKernan)

4. Around the World: The First Norwegian Newsreel, 1930-1940 (Rolf Werenskjold)

5. The Commentary Makes the Difference: An Analysis of the Suez War in East and West German Newsreels, 1956 (Kay Hoffmann)

6. Martin Luther King's Assassination in Spain's NO-DOs and in Bulgaria's Kinopregledi (Lyubomir Pozharliev and Danae Gallo González)

7. Matrices for Non-Fiction: Dziga Vertov and the Kino-Nedelia Newsreels (John MacKay)

8. More Than Goebbels Bargained For: Nazi-Newsreel Dissemination in Occupied Denmark and the Golden Age of Danish Documentary (Lars-Martin Sørensen)

9. Screening War and Peace: Newsreel Pragmatism in Neutral Sweden, September 1939 and May 1945

(Åsa Bergström and Mats Jönsson)

10. The Legal Settlement and Reconstruction in the Norwegian Newsreel Filmavisa, 1945-1949 (Idar Flo)

11. Advertising and Self-Reference in the West-German Newsreel Neue Deutsche Wochenschau in the 1950s and 1960s (Sigrun Lehnert)

12. Newsreel Production, Distribution and Exhibition in Belgium, 1908-1994 (Roel Vande Winkel and Daniel Biltereyst)

13. Researching the Issued Content of American Newsreels (Scott L. Althaus and Kylee Britzman)

14. The Irish Question: Newsreels and National Identity (Ciara Chambers)

15. If You Build It, Will They Come?: Researching British Newsreels (Linda Kaye)