Thunnis van Oort

Industrial organization of film exhibitors in the Low Countries: comparing the Netherlands and Belgium, 1945–1960

Belgium and the Netherlands developed surprisingly divergent cinema economies and movie-going cultures from the early twentieth century onwards. This article seeks explanations for this difference in the way the film exhibition industry was organized in both neighbouring countries. The Dutch exhibitors were united (together with distributors) in the business interest association Nederlandse Bioscoopbond that functioned as a powerful cartel with a tight control over the market. By keeping entry barriers to the industry high, the association restricted the number of cinema operations. In Belgium, the business associations for exhibitors never attained a similar degree of coordination nor influence; here, the market was much less restricted, arguably leading to a wider distribution of cinemas. For instance, in contrast to the Netherlands, where barely any Catholic or Socialist cinemas appeared, Belgium counted large secondary circuits of these ‘pillarized’ film theatres. Basis for this analysis are Dutch and...Belgium and the Netherlands developed surprisingly divergent cinema economies and movie-going cultures from the early twentieth century onwards. This article seeks explanations for this difference in the way the film exhibition industry was organized in both neighbouring countries. The Dutch exhibitors were united (together with distributors) in the business interest association Nederlandse Bioscoopbond that functioned as a powerful cartel with a tight control over the market. By keeping entry barriers to the industry high, the association restricted the number of cinema operations. In Belgium, the business associations for exhibitors never attained a similar degree of coordination nor influence; here, the market was much less restricted, arguably leading to a wider distribution of cinemas. For instance, in contrast to the Netherlands, where barely any Catholic or Socialist cinemas appeared, Belgium counted large secondary circuits of these ‘pillarized’ film theatres. Basis for this analysis are Dutch and Belgian trade press materials and yearbooks, and archival files of the Nederlandse Bioscoopbond. The article sweeps through most of the twentieth century, with a main focus on the post-war reconstruction era.

Franco Sells Spain to America. Hollywood, Tourism and Public Relations as Postwar Spanish Soft Power

The collection’s co-editors focus on Poitier and masculine heterosexuality and Keith Corson and Novotny Lawrence focus on Poitier’s directing. Strachen and Corson provide thorough and balanced overviews of their topics, both of which are necessary. The limits on Poitier in portraying Black sexuality were perhaps the most criticized aspect of his stardom, and Strachen effectively conveys those limits as well as carefully describing the instances in which Poitier pushed against or stretched them. Mask considers Poitier’s attachment to the Western, the genre of film he consistently recalled in interviews as his favorite as a child, a genre he expressed interest in working in from the start of his career, and the genre of the first film, Buck and the Preacher (1971), he made as a director. Poitier Revisited has its roots in the Sidney Poitier International Conference and Film Festival, held at the College of the Bahamas in 2010, and it shows those origins both in some of its best and it weakest features. Like many conference proceedings and edited collections, the chapters are somewhat uneven in depth and execution (though all are worth engaging), and there are gaps in attention. For example, Poitier continued to act until 2001 and he has written three books in the last fifteen years, but this collection leaves his career after about 1980 unexamined. Unlike much work on Poitier, however, this volume does put the star in international context. Given Poitier’s own international, cosmopolitan identity, such consideration is crucial, and Poitier Revisited does useful work in providing it.

Geoffrey Donaldson: Een leven voor de film

and Michael Sheen’s ‘Blair Cycle’ (The Deal [2003], The Queen [2006] and The Special Relationship [2010]), examining the place of the biopic in an age of media saturation in which public figures ‘exist first and foremost through television’ (p. 145). The ‘Blair Cycle’ skilfully incorporates live television into its historical discourse, creating a ‘double-framing’ of its subject which emphasises the performances of both actor and politician (p. 153). Rebecca A. Sheeran’s chapter ‘Facebooking the Present’ also addresses biopics of contemporary cultural figures and the concomitant influence of new media in popular engagements with the past. Focussing particularly on The Social Network (2010), she argues that the near-instantaneity of many modern biopics is characteristic of a ‘paradoxical relationship’ between film and new media in which the past is figured as ‘both historical and ongoing’ (p. 36). There are many more valuable essays in this wide-ranging yet coherent collection. Taken as a whole, they attest to the vitality and malleability of the modern biopic, while also illustrating the range of approaches available to scholars who wish to continue the absorbing work in this area.