Methodological Issues of Comparing Local Film Popularity Across the Iron Curtain : A Case Study of Ghent and Brno in 1951-1953
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | 1950s, digitized in earlier projects (Enlightened City, Belgium and Cinematic Brno, Czech Republic). The Iron Curtain prevented the (majority of) influences of the West from saturating Eastern Europe. The film supply circulating in this region provides a good example: the Hollywood production that flooded West Europe was in the East substituted by films from the Soviet Union. The simple fact of a completely different distribution offer in Ghent and in Brno at the beginning of the 1950s makes any comparison of film preferences a true challenge. We approach the comparison by taking a distance from the local cases by quantifying the films’ popularity. To do so, we used the POPSTAT method to derive the index of film popularity. This numerical attribute gives us an opportunity to look at the films in large datasets that can be analysed and compared. The Communist Authorities viewed film as an educational tool, to enlighten Czech filmgoers. However, our findings indicate that filmgoers made choices much as they did in the West, albeit from a different stock of films. |
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