Heterotopia, Heterochronia:
                                  place and time in cinema memory

                                           Annette Kuhn

                                        a.f.kuhn@qmul.ac.uk

                                              ‘‘  ’’

   Cinema was a real thrill in those days….Talking about it I can almost feel how I felt.  Yeah.
Yeah. Mm.  It was wonderful.

                                                                         Beatrice Cooper, born 1921





                                        Cinema in the world

•         familiar vs exotic

•         abundance vs scarcity

•         freedom vs constraint

•         routine, repetitition



                                            Heterotopia



  ‘a sort of place that lies outside all places and yet is actually localizable’

                                                                                    Michel Foucault

                                              ‘‘  ’’

And of course…got people from

humdrum life and you

know…that’s TWO HOURS OF

FREEDOM.

                                                                           Arthur Orrell, born 1920

                                              ‘‘  ’’

  You could sit in and see it three times round if you wanted….If that was a picture I liked, you
know….I’d say, oh, I’ll see some more of that.

                                                                         Phyllis Bennett, born 1915

                                              ‘‘  ’’

   You just went in anytime. It could’ve been halfway through or whatever. And then you sort of sat
through the programme and then waited to see the bit that you’d missed.

                                                                          Eileen Barnett, born 1924

                                              ‘‘  ’’

I said ‘I think I'll watch it again'. So I sat

on and watched it again and I…got up to

come out and was passing a friend with

her parents and she said  ‘…Don't go

out, Helen. Just sit with me’. So I sat

through it again! And at the end…she

said…, ‘Could I sit through this again?’

and they said ‘Well, if Helen'll stay’. I

sat through the film four times. …

                                                                           Helen Smeaton, born 1917



                                              ‘‘  ’’

  Cos you had to go, you see. Cos they had a serial on….And it got to an exciting part and that
went off until next week.  So of course you had to go.

                                                                         Phyllis Bennett, born 1915

                                              ‘‘  ’’

  That meant we had to go to the cinema thirteen weeks in succession.  But you know, it couldn’t
come quick enough….

                                                                          Thomas McGoran, born 1927



                                      The world in the cinema

•         heterotopia

•         cinema time

•         the body



                                    Heterotopia, Heterochronia:
                                  place and time in cinema memory

                                           Annette Kuhn

                                        a.f.kuhn@qmul.ac.uk