Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword: Travelling Down /Travelling Through
- Preface: The Balkan Imaginary of Ruins
- Introduction: Charting the Terrain: Early Cinema in the Balkans
- 1 Visual Culture in the Balkans, Haptic Visuality, and Archival
- 2 Historicizing the Balkan Spectator and the Embodied Cinema Experience
- 3 Mapping Constellations : Movement and Cross-cultural Exchange of Images, Practices, and People
- 4 Imagining the Balkans: The Cinematic Gaze from the Outside
- 5 ‘Made in the Balkans’: Mirroring the Self
- Conclusion: The Future Perfect of Early Balkan Cinema
- Bibliography
- Appendix
- Index
2 - Historicizing the Balkan Spectator and the Embodied Cinema Experience
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword: Travelling Down /Travelling Through
- Preface: The Balkan Imaginary of Ruins
- Introduction: Charting the Terrain: Early Cinema in the Balkans
- 1 Visual Culture in the Balkans, Haptic Visuality, and Archival
- 2 Historicizing the Balkan Spectator and the Embodied Cinema Experience
- 3 Mapping Constellations : Movement and Cross-cultural Exchange of Images, Practices, and People
- 4 Imagining the Balkans: The Cinematic Gaze from the Outside
- 5 ‘Made in the Balkans’: Mirroring the Self
- Conclusion: The Future Perfect of Early Balkan Cinema
- Bibliography
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
Abstract
The second chapter focuses on the spaces of early cinema shows within the broader context of the urban, modern experience and shifting night-time practices in the Balkan region. Through a comparative reading of early press materials, selected writings of authors and intellectuals, and cultural history in the Balkans, I explore the ‘vernacular modernity’ and intensification of life in urban environments at the turn of the twentieth century. The coffeehouse transpires as a characteristic site for the experience of modernity and public life across the Balkans, while the consumption of coffee as a stimulant, which modifies the experience of time and space, emerges as a cultural and social practice akin to the act and effects of cinema viewing.
Keywords: modernity, cultural history, coffeehouses, social practices, urban life, cinema-going
Walking down Stadiou Street in the last few days, pedestrians must have noticed the big inscription ‘Cinématophotographe Edison’, illuminated by four Edison electric lamps. Those curious enough to enter the venue, would find themselves in the midst of a magical parade of living images, of slices of life in front of them, and experience amazement and fascination. (Ω, Asty, 7 December 1896).
Across the Balkans, in cities such as Belgrade, Bucharest, or Sofia, the turn of the century gave rise to the boulevard, the communal park, and a variety of leisurely and entertainment activities. Modernity and its zeitgeist were increasingly present through a number of factors: the paving of the streets; introduction of electrical lighting; erection of new buildings; investment in public transport and railway systems; as well as the organization of public and social life through the opening of coffeehouses and restaurants, theatrical and music performances, and several sports, music, and cultural associations. A new urban class started to emerge, which enjoyed the experience of modernity collectively and constituted some of the early cinema audiences in the region. Tsivian found that, in the Russian context, cinema was a space where different social groups could provisionally coexist (1998, 31). While there is little empirical evidence on the identities and social class of early cinema audiences in the Balkans, the announcements in the local press, brief descriptions of film shows, and other literary texts indicate these were quite heterogenous: comprising urban dwellers, families, school children and teachers, intellectuals and literary personas, members of the royal family, and military personnel.
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- Information
- Early Cinema, Modernity and Visual CultureThe Imaginary of the Balkans, pp. 73 - 116Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022