The Wick Society’s Intervention into Industrial Heritage: Remaking Local Films for Future Historians
Shand, Ryan (2014) The Wick Society’s Intervention into Industrial Heritage: Remaking Local Films for Future Historians. International Journal of Scottish Theatre and Screen. pp. 70-97. ISSN 2046-5602
Abstract
This article proposes that due to its very different production and exhibition networks, amateur cinema constructs a supplementary image of the nation: one that is much closer to ‘local’ histories and community memories. Cine-club films from the 1930s (amateur documentaries entered into The Scottish Amateur Film Festival) shed light on aspects of national life that went undocumented by metropolitan newsreel and sponsored documentary filmmakers located in the Central Belt of Scotland. The use of amateur film as a way of understanding the specific past of peripheral areas is explored in relation to the town of Wick, Caithness, located in the far north of Scotland. The analysis is developed in relation to two short films: Around Wick Harbour (1936) and Around Wick Harbour 1974/75. Through this small case study, the potential value in broadening narrow definitions of the heritage film is proposed, as is the importance of archival images traditionally marginal to the concerns of film scholars.
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