Italian Cinemas and Moviegoing. Venues, People, Management

The new historiographical paradigms (Biltereyst, Malby, Meers 2019), the relevant boost of film audience studies provided by networks such as HoMER, and the convergence of an increasing number of disciplines around cinema history: geography (Hallam, Roberts 2014; Treveri Gennari, O’Rawe, Hipkins 2019; Celata, Simone 2023), ethnography (Treveri Gennari et al, 2020; Stokes, Jones, Pett 2022; Antichi, Fedele, Garofalo 2023; Wessels et al 2022; Kuhn 2023), phenomenology (Hanich 2017), have, in recent years, produced an important growth in historical knowledge about movie theatres, the public, and, more generally, cinema experiences. Data-driven approaches and open science models (Deb Verhoeven’s work has been pivotal in this regard) have in addition contributed to deeply transforming the work of scholars, even in traditional fields, such as early cinema (Slugan, Biltereyst 2022), introducing new perspectives, encouraging to intersect many and different sources (Egan-Smith-Terrill, 2021), and developing longitudinal and comparative studies (van Oort, Whitehead, 2023). The research on movie theatres and moviegoing in Italy has certainly benefited from this conjuncture. However, some aspects and periods have been investigated less (systematically) than others. For example, the long and non-linear phase of the decline of cinemas and cinema-going in Italy, from the 1960s to the 1980s and the subsequent revival, from the second half of the 1990s have been understudied; cinema-going in rural areas and Southern regions, despite being the subject of some pioneering research (Pinna et al, 1958), still largely needs to be investigated. Likewise, the history of entrepreneurs running cinemas in Italy – predominantly family-run enterprises – is a relatively unexplored field. The history of the professions that revolve around cinema (managers, projectionists, cashiers…), in turn need to be completely reconstructed. In the same way, the experience of moviegoers, their relationship with cinema and the role that the viewing experience has taken on in their lives continue to offer many opportunities for study and investigation, strengthened by new investigation techniques and methodologies. Considering this landscape, this special issue aims to analyze how cinema and movie theatres shaped the history of territories, businesses, and people in the past and present, with a particular but non-exclusive focus on the case of Italy. Special attention will be given to papers proposing new methodologies and perspectives, also using data-driven approaches, and/or papers involving comparative studies with the case of Italy.