Politicizing the audience? Film fans’ experiences of cinema in the 1960s

The potential politicizing effects of a film or media text are often inferred from the political personae or directly expressed intentions of those involved in its making, from the presence of a political auteur-director to the mass-media friendly apolitical self-identifications of certain stars. Analyzing ethnographic material that deals with film viewers’ memories of cinema cultures, this chapter explores the possibilities and limitations of politicizing an audience through cinema. The chapter explores film fans’ memories of this era, in order to understand how cinema culture and film theatres are remembered in relation to an individual’s sense of their own politicization or depoliticization. It explores the politicized state of the cinema audience at the end of the 1950s through a case study focused on one politically inclined film-viewing group in the northwest region of Kyoto, which was the first iteration of the group now known as the Kinugasa eiga kai.