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Paving the Empire Road: BBC television and Black Britons
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Mereu, Carla |
| Copyright Year | 2013 |
| Abstract | parish display cabinets. Gerber argues that the journal had a fairly widespread influence in Germanic Switzerland. The target audience of the Filmberater was indeed very heterogeneous. On the one hand, it was an elite journal aimed at policy and decision makers, capable of influencing the cinema public, the cinema programs and film legislation. On the other hand, the publishers of the journal also tried to reach the average catholic moviegoer, especially through the short reviews and the moral ratings. Gerber is particularly interested in the 1960s and early 1970s, a period characterized by major changes in society in general and in the Catholic Church in particular. Overall societal developments lead to a social and political liberalization, which is also reflected in the Swiss Church’s attitude towards cinema. The Filmberater started adjusting its editorial line. The mandatory character of the movie ratings disappeared and the journal’s strongly paternalistic stance weakened. It also focused more on the artistic and aesthetic qualities of films, than it did before. New and more flexible standards concerning the moral value of a film were implemented. The system of moral ratings, which had not been questioned seriously until the mid-1960s was abolished only as late as 1972, when the journal merged with a Protestant publication to become the Zoom Filmberater. For the author, this is a clear indication that the fundamental reorientation and modernization of Swiss Catholic film activities lagged behind other countries, such as Germany. Although Adrian Gerber’s book is an informative and very well researched and documented in-depth historical work (it contains over one thousand endnotes), it is not without its shortcomings. Due to its structure, it contains a lot of repetitions from one chapter to the other. Furthermore, I would have liked to learn more about the influence and the impact of the OCIC on the activities of the Zurich Film Bureau and the editorial line of the Filmberater. A more detailed comparison with Catholic film activities in other countries would also have enriched the book. Nevertheless, these are minor flaws in a work which is a welcome addition and a solid contribution to a small but growing body of literature on two areas of film history that have been neglected for too long: film policies and activities of religious institutions and organizations, as well as the history of film journalism. |
| Starting Page | 152 |
| Ending Page | 154 |
| Page Count | 3 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1080/01439685.2012.728333 |
| Volume Number | 33 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~dmnewton/Book%20reviews/paving%20reviews.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2012.728333 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
