Abstract
Based on 40 filmed semi-open interviews with cinema-goers from the 1950s, this essay investigates, explores and contextualises memories of extra-filmic sound in Gothenburg’s (Sweden) and Bari (Italy) cinemas such as “ticket whistling”, the calling out of football scores each time actors kissed on screen and the inevitable silencing response from the usher. By foregrounding the auditory ecology of cinema theatres as an overlooked aspect of cinema-going memories, investigating them along the lines of what Julia Tonkiss labelled “aural postcards” (Tonkiss, Aural postcards: Sound, memory and the city. In M. Bull & L. Back (Eds.), The auditory culture reader (pp. 243–247). Routledge, 2016), this essay explores aspects of oral histories of the cinema-going experience which are not primarily tied to space or visual spectacle. More generally, the chapter aims to add a new methodological perspective to discussions on how to analyse and contextualise important cinema-going practices and phenomena often deemed too anecdotal or unverifiable to pass the rigours of film historical writing.
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Notes
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See also Corriou (2010), for the behaviour of Italians within cinema theatres in Tunisia in the 1930s–1940s.
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Appendix A: Search Words
Appendix A: Search Words
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1.
Hear
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2.
Sound
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3.
Noise, noisy
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4.
Talk
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5.
Voice
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Loud
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Holler
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Yell
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9.
Cheer
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Laughter
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Applaud, applause
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Shout
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13.
Chatter
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14.
Whistle
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15.
Scream
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16.
Gasp
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Shush
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Rustle
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19.
Murmur
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Whisper
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Quiet
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Peace, peaceful
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Silence
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24.
Slam
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25.
Bang
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26.
Whirr
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Fahlstedt, K.K., Treveri Gennari, D. (2024). Ticket Whistles and Football Scores: Auditory Ecology, Memory and the Cinema Experience in 1950s Gothenburg and Bari. In: Treveri Gennari, D., Van de Vijver, L., Ercole, P. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative New Cinema Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38789-0_13
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