Goode, I. (2011) Cinema in the Country: the Rural Cinema Scheme – Orkney (1946-67)

Goode, I. (2011) Cinema in the country: the rural cinema scheme – Orkney (1946-67). Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities, 30 (2). ISSN 0277-9897 http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/54557/ Deposited on: 13th February 2012 Enlighten – Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow http://eprints.gla.ac.uk CINEMA IN THE COUNTRY : THE RURAL CINEMA —ORKNEY (1946-67) IAN GOODE The act of transporting cinema to and Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar (formerly the exhibiting films for the rural communities of Western Isles Council), and North Ayrshire the Highlands and Islands of Scotland has Council. The mobile cinema serves the com- attracted a fair amount of press attention at munities of the Highlands and Islands of home and abroad recently (“Box Office”). Scotland and has also delivered cinema to This is partly due to the events pioneered UK troops during a four week visit to Bosnia by the British actress Tilda Swinton and the in 2001 (“Screen Machine”). writer and critic Mark Cousins. Beginning The current impetus behind mobile cin- with the film festival The Ballerina Ballroom ema and other community orientated forms Cinema of Dreams held in Nairn on the north of film exhibition has been supported by the east coast of Scotland in 2008, followed a soon to be abolished—UK Film Council. In year later by A Pilgrimage which involved 2009 the Distribution and Exhibition depart- tugging a mobile cinema along an exhibition ment of the Council launched an initiative route from Fort Augustus to Nairn incorpo- named the Rural Cinema Pilot Scheme rating Loch Ness. These initiatives and less designed to give “people in rural areas publicized others, such as The Small Islands the opportunity to enjoy the communal Film Festival (2007-2009), are born of a pas- experience of cinema” in England (“Rural sionate desire to not only take a preferred Cinema”). This scheme was allocated £1.2 vision of cinema to selected areas of rural million of Lottery funding and the use of Scotland, but also, to offer potential audi- digital technology offers the possibility of ences a different cinema going experience extending the geographical reach of UK film by challenging what might be considered exhibition (“Rural Cinema”). These recent the norms of film exhibition. developments in rural provision prompt The vehicle for A Pilgrimage was the the question: to what extent has that type Screen Machine, a custom built articulated of cinema which Barbara Klinger refers to lorry that converts into a self contained one as non-theatrical, and which I refer to here hundred and two seat cinema. This mobile as rural, been written into film history? cinema was painstakingly developed by (Klinger 2008). Highlands and Islands Arts Ltd. in conjunc- Rural cinema represents a relatively tion with CinÈmobile of France between under-researched and developing area of 1994 and 2005 to negotiate the narrow and film history in different national contexts twisting road network of rural Scotland. (Maltby; Allen; Stokes 2008; Meers; Bil- Screen Machine is currently managed by tereyst; Van De Vijver 2009). This work is Regional Screen Scotland and financially expanding the geography of historical re- supported by a combination of Scottish search beyond the urban context of cinema. Screen, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, What I am interested in here is extending Volume 30, No. 2 17 Post Script this history of cinema and exhibition to Scot- and to show films periodically in different land, and specifically the remote location of villages” (1/1/249). The feasibility of this Orkney—the collection of islands ten miles suggestion was strengthened by the financial off the north eastern tip of the mainland - support offered by the Carnegie Trust for and in the policy directives and nature of 16mm projectors for use by rural community the conditions under which organized rural councils (GD281/82/74). The extension of cinema becomes possible. This in a period the 16mm film distribution market beyond that begins with the formation of the Scottish the home movie sector into education and Film Council in 1934 and in a country where other non-theatrical exhibition locations also over ninety per cent of the geography of its develops during this decade (Lebas 1995). land mass is rural and historically depopu- The institutional claim on this expansion lated (“The Scottish”). of access is demonstrated by The Scottish Educational Film Association a body formed in 1935 to promote the use of the educational UK FILM INSTITUTIONS film and other visual aids in education (“Bi- IN SC OTLAND ography of”). C.M. Boyle declared that “in The 1930s represents a period of concern the years before the war, in the new field throughout the UK over the perceived effects of non-theatrical cinema, or might we call of the commercial cinema on a growing au- it Social Cinema, Scotland has occupied a dience. The 1932 report The Film in National foremost position” (Boyle 65). Life was commissioned by the Commission The beginning of the second world war of Educational and Cultural Films to inves- in 1939 quickened the implementation of tigate “the role of the cinema in education this policy, as the Scottish Film Council in and social progress” (“History of the BFI”). conjunction with the Ministry of Informa- The published report recommended the for- tion was directed to organize film shows mation of a central film institute and argued for children evacuated to rural communities 2 for the “recognition of film as a powerful using the apparatus of mobile cinema. The instrument for good or evil in national life” Evacuees Film Scheme delivered mobile (Commission on Educational and Cultural cinema in vans to audiences in reception Films 1932; Bolas 2009; Napper 2009). There areas across the Scottish Lowlands and is evidence here, in the emerging British film Highlands. More 16mm projectors were culture, that the national audience can be made available through the support of the maneuvered away from the distraction that Carnegie UK Trust and film programmes is the entertainment film, assuming as Jeffrey were transported to and exhibited in venues Richards has argued “an intelligent audience that included schools, halls and the kitchen 3 waiting to be discovered” (Richards 1984; of a private house. The precedent of non- Stead 1981). theatrical cinema schemes directed from It is against a background of institutions institutional centers to geographical periph- and individuals such as John Grierson seek- eries and organized under the duress of war ing to instrumentally direct the use of film was continued in the post-war period. towards non-commercial and educational The Highlands and Islands Film Guild ends that the British Film Institute and its was formed in October 1946 following branch in Scotland, the Scottish Film Coun- an Inverness conference involving public cil, emerged.1 The four panel structure of bodies with common interests in the area the Scottish Film Council consisted of Edu- (Morris 269). Negotiations between local cation, Entertainment, Amateur and Social authorities, government departments, social Service. Concurrent with these institutional organizations and headed by the Scottish developments was the suggestion from the Agricultural Organisation Limited led to the Social Service Panel “that a mobile cinema public announcement of the Guild’s forma- van should be purchased to tour rural areas tion. Press coverage of the event emphasizes Volume 30, No. 2 18 Post Script the defining functions of the organization provisional nature of non-theatrical cinema and the necessity of aid for rural Scotland. and the dependence on and involvement The necessity of economic and cultural pro- of the community in its transportation and vision had assumed renewed significance as operation are key factors in the identity and a means of countering isolation and depopu- appeal of rural cinema in the post-war years lation as servicemen and women returned (Morris 1955; Ross 1966; Cameron 1993). home after the second world war. The Guild began delivery of mobile The functions of the new body were cinema in 1947 with two units serving the made public as follows: areas of Shetland and Caithness and North (a) improving the educational, cultural Sutherland. In that year of operation 441 film and recreational amenities avail- shows were offered to 29,400 spectators (Ross able to rural communities in the 271). During the following year the Guild expanded its activities to fourteen mobile Highlands and Islands of Scotland cinema units that covered the five crofter by exhibiting and organizing the counties of Argyll, Inverness, Ross, Suther- exhibition of films on a non-profit- land and Shetland, including the Hebrides. making basis; The geography of the Guild’s exhibition (b) in close association with education areas omits the Border counties to the south authorities and other statutory or and also the Orkney Isles to the north east. It voluntary bodies concerned with is the development of the provision of rural the welfare of rural communities cinema in Orkney which interests me here in Scotland, advising, assisting and as a preliminary case study and precursor co-operating with local organisa- to a larger project on the history of rural tions, such as community associa- cinema in Scotland. I select Orkney, because tions, whose objects might include of its history of Nordic connections, and its the use and development of films geographical location and above all its deci- for the purposes of education and sion to organize its own rural cinema scheme recreation, and to promoting and semi-independently of the Film Guild in 1946 encouraging the formation of such (CO5/1/14). organisations and associations in The particular history of rural cinema areas where they did not already in Orkney occurs from the social and cul- exist; tural conjuncture of state concern with youth (c) assisting education authorities in education and the geographical significance furthering the educational use of of the area’s strategic role during the second films in rural schools and com- world war.

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