‘Heart Beats from Filmland’: Cinema Culture and its Fan Magazines in Interwar New Zealand

Abstract

Histories of film and cinemagoing in New Zealand have been written through a distinctively producer-centric lens. Our historiography is crowded with narratives of filmmakers, early exhibitionists and censors, cinematic architecture and government agencies. We are yet to turn our eyes away from the screen and look toward those waiting expectantly in the audience, or hurrying in after a spot of late-night shopping. We are yet to ask questions of our cinema-going culture and how interwar cinema fans made sense of their experiences. This thesis seeks to contribute to the recent cultural turn in New Zealand history away from nationalistic narratives and toward an understanding of our past as one of modernity, consumerism and playfulness and transnational connections. It explores aspects of New Zealand's cinema culture in its interwar heyday through the pages of two of its most popular fan magazines, New Zealand Theatre and Motion Picture and, its successor, New Zealand Talkies and Theatre. It demonstrates that not only were New Zealanders active, engaged fans, they were modern, transnationally connected consumers who sought the best entertainment options for Saturday night. Drawing on work by international film historians, the first chapter begins with an exploration of New Zealand's version of the 'fan', challenging the notion of this time as dull, rural and producer-oriented. The second chapter takes a look at the critically discerning nature of our cinemagoers, arguing against the pervasive cultural wasteland narrative. The last chapter then heeds Gibbons' call of locating the world in New Zealand. But, instead of interpreting cinema culture as a symptom of unabated Americanisation or a site of colonial loyalty, it takes a different approach, arguing cinema was a complex, multi-faceted and ever-changing way for New Zealanders to engage with a range of cultures and identities (including their own). Together, these three snapshots of interwar cinemagoing illuminate the importance of a view of New Zealand's cinematic history that is fixed firmly on the audience.