A Captivated Audience. Cinema-going at the zoological garden in occupied Antwerp, 1915–1918

Abstract

A Captivated Audience studies the organization, regulation and consumption of culture in occupied Belgium during the First World War. Through a case-study of the founding and day-to-day operations of Cinema Zoologie, the film theatre located at the Antwerp Zoo, it is demonstrated how tensions between organizers, audiences and the occupying force are played out in the leisure sphere. The film theatre is presented as an arena of conflicting interests where politics, business and patriotism clash. Cinema Zoologie was operated by the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp (owner of the Antwerp Zoo), a bourgeois society with an international membership and ties with the German community in Antwerp. As a movie theatre located in this thoroughly bourgeois environment, Cinema Zoologie is also an ideal microcosm to study wartime reactions to filmed entertainment and information as well as bourgeois cinema-going experiences. The research presented here is largely based on primary sources from the extensive archives of the Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp kept at the Antwerp City Archive (Felixarchief).