Thesis Sep 2015 Working Draft

Curating a Stateless Nation: Selection, Access and Issues of National Specificity in the Promotion of Scottish Film Heritage Master Thesis Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image 30 September 2015 Faculty of Humanities Department of Media Studies University of Amsterdam Stephanie Cattigan (10619046) [email protected] Supervisor: Dr. Eef Masson Table of Contents Introduction (3) Chapter 1 - Background: Discussing ‘The National‘ (9) 1.1 Defining National Specificity (9) 1.2 Britain & Scotland; State, Nation, Stateless Nation? (12) Chapter 2 - Theoretical Framework: Reading & Interpreting National Heritage (17) 2.1 National Heritage & Canon Formation (17) 2.2 Modes of Interpretation (20) 2.3 Framing & Context (23) Chapter 3 - Case Studies: British & Scottish National Contexts (27) 3.1 Introduction: Two National Archives (27) 3.2 Comparing Title Selections: (29) - Feature Film (30) - Television/Broadcast (32) - Sponsored/Documentary (34) - Topical/Actuality (36) - Amateur/Experimental (37) 3.3 Internal & External Framing (41) Conclusion (50) Works Cited (55) Appendices: A: SSA Exhibition Showreel Titles List (59) B: BFI ‘Scottish Reels’ Titles List (60) 2 Introduction In the run-up to last year’s referendum on Scottish independence the UK media speculated heavily on the possibility of Scotland no longer remaining part of Britain, and the many hypothetical outcomes in this event. Everything from new passports, flags and currency to different dialling codes and time zones were flouted as conceivable side-effects of Britain ‘breaking up’. The status of several prominent British institutions such as the BBC, Tate Britain and the British Museum were also considered1. When asked his opinion on the implications of this the director of the British Museum is quoted as saying, ‘the British Museum is the first cultural evidence of the union. [...] It was marrying Scottish Enlightenment ideas to London's global contact, and it was a real expression of what that new country [Britain] was’2. It is interesting to note the use of the word ‘was’ here, as much of the debate and contemplation surrounding this ‘identity crisis’ leading up to the referendum focused on the past, and on the idea of something (‘Britishness’) that had actually long since disappeared. Sociologist David McCrone writes that historically British identity depended upon firstly ‘a powerful enough sense of ‘Britain’ to encapsulate the minor national identities of these islands’3 and secondly ‘upon the British Empire, the monarchy, and institutions such as the BBC’4. As the influences of these institutions has waned, so too has the shared sense of British national identity. McCrone also isolated the mobilisation of British nationalism by the Thatcher government as an important factor, stating that it ‘became clear - at least to the ‘periphery’ - that it had become an empty shell, or at least was indistinguishable from English nationalism’5. Taking these points into consideration prompts some important counterpoints to those hypothetical musings about the fate of the ‘British’ in the British Museum; is the concept of ‘Britishness’ still culturally relevant enough to have an impact on heritage provision? And would the removal of Scotland from this equation really make much of an impact on the way these national institutions manage and exhibit their collections? 1 Jonathan Jones, ‘Would Scottish independence unleash a British art identity crisis?’, The Guardian, 10 September 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/sep/10/would-scottish-indepence-unleash- british-art-identity-crisis, (accessed 1 September 2015). 2 Charlotte Higgins, ‘What would be the implications for the British Museum if Scotland voted for independence?’, The Guardian, 25 June 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2013/jun/25/british-museum- scottish-independence, (accessed 1 September 2015). 3 David McCrone, Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Stateless Nation. (London, Routledge, 1992): 209. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 3 Britain remains happily married (or at least cohabiting tolerably) so these questions are still very much hypothetical in nature. But they do provide a jumping off point for what this thesis aims to address; the shared custody of national heritage and how it is cared for in different national contexts. Because it is often the case that these ‘peripheries’ have their own ‘national’ institutions. As a result there are two ‘national’ institutions serving, in theory, the same country. For example, there is also a National Museum of Scotland to provide an equivalency to the aforementioned British Museum. A situation such as this prompts questions regarding the shared responsibility of these institutions, and how each fulfils a requirement to represent collections of national importance. The difference being, this thesis assumes, the national context that surrounds this work: either ‘Scottish’ or ‘British’. This thesis aims to address these questions within the field of film preservation and archiving. Scotland also has its own film archive, established in 1976 in response to a ‘concern that Scottish cultural needs and Scottish cultural expression was not being met in the collection policy of the London [National Film] Archive’6. I will argue that national context has an important role in determining how film heritage is curated by focusing on the work of Scotland’s two national film archives; the Scottish Screen Archive and the BFI National Archive. Hit with the realisation that much of early film history was lost forever through neglect or deterioration, early film archivists quickly put together their first preservation initiatives. Janna Jones recognises that ‘there was not a unified philosophy for preserving film in the early years of cinema collecting and archiving’ but recognises that ‘there was a nationalistic undercurrent that ran through much of early film collection rhetoric’7. Caroline Frick also explores the rationale behind preservation choices in the early days of film archiving in her book Saving Cinema. She identifies the focus on the national canon and the rise of ‘heritage’ as important socio-political concepts behind why early film archives such as MoMA and the BFI, ‘both defined and limited the range of material deemed worthy of preservation and future scholastic inquiry’8 In many cases, this narrow and highly limited national outlook was often problematic as it informed selection processes and resulted in the neglect of marginalised works and those deemed unsuitable for preservation. There are several issues highlighted by these authors that explain why nationalism was important for early film preservation practice. Frick equates it predominantly with the rise of the 6 Janet McBain, ‘Film and History: An Interview with Janet McBain, Curator of the Scottish Film Archive’, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies. 27.1 (2007). 97-8. 7 Janna Jones. The Past is a Moving Picture: Preserving the Twentieth Century on Film. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012): 28. 8 Caroline Frick. Saving Cinema: The Politics of Preservation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011): 5. 4 heritage movement. She links the centrality of preservation (as opposed to access) within early film archives as being symptomatic of this era which ‘gave rise to the heritage phenomenon’9. In turn she comments on how heritage preservation was then and is now ‘inextricably’ linked to nationalism (19). While this may be the case when it comes to the broader topic of heritage provision across a range of institutions, for the film archive specifically this link has weakened. Jones writes, ‘the nationalistic discourse that helped to shape early film collections has significantly diminished. The meanings of the film archive became less and less controllable as the twentieth century progressed, helping to liberate the archive from its original inclinations towards historicism and its nationalistic underpinnings’10. There are several contributing factors as to why this influence waned. Most notably the role of the orphan film movement which has brought attention to the importance of different types of film, especially those which do not necessarily reflect the national or have direct importance for a national cinema or heritage. However, as Frick notes, ‘prioritizing the preservation of, rather than the promotion of public access to, global film heritage “treasures” remains the foundation of contemporary motion picture archival practice and training’11. As a result, there does not seem to have been as much consideration of the role of nationalism and nationalist discourse in how preserved material is made accessible. This thesis will offer an example of one way that these issues can impact on access projects, as will be demonstrated in the analysis of two key case studies. I intend to compare and contrast two examples of curated access projects dealing with Scottish film heritage; one from the Scottish national archive and one from the British national archive. The aim is to analyse each project to ascertain what differences and similarities arise from within different national contexts. The first case study is an exhibition that took place at the National Library of Scotland (NLS) and was co-curated in collaboration with the Scottish Screen Archive (SSA)12. The second is focused on the launch of a Mediatheque in Glasgow by the BFI, and will concern the ‘specially commissioned’13 collection of films that were made accessible to visitors as part

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