Bristol Fashion: Reclaiming Cary Grant for Bristol – Film Heritage, Screen Tourism and Curating the Cary Comes Home Festival

Charlotte Crofts

doi:10.16995/os.8018

Abstract

This article re-examines Cary Grant’s star persona arguing that the importance of his Bristolian identity has been under-appreciated. Through a detailed discussion of attempts to promote his Bristolian roots including the biennial Cary Comes Home Festival (established 2014), the article argues that these activities have encouraged a re-evaluation of Cary Grant’s star identity, increased understanding of his importance to Bristol’s screen heritage, and helped promote film tourism to the city. The article outlines the history and development of the festival, critically reflecting on the curatorial practices that underpinned them. It is informed by three main interlinked theoretical areas: star studies; the literature on fan practices of cinematic tourism and pilgrimage, and festival studies. It analyses the ways in which expanded cinema programming provides opportunities for decentering the understanding of Grant’s persona as a Hollywood star, by exploring the festival’s programming of immersive cinematic experiences in locations that were significant to his Bristolian identity. The article also examines the impact of the festival’s role in relocating Grant within Bristol, the ways in which it has enhanced the city’s sense of its cinematic heritage – including achieving UNESCO City of Film status in October 2017 – and the ways in which Bristol has become a living archive through which and in which Cary Grant’s star persona is constructed and circulates, which has helped promote film tourism to the city today.

Highlights

Cary Grant, born as Archibald Leach in a working-class area of Bristol in the South West of England, UK in 1904, became one of Hollywood’s most celebrated stars, hailed as the ‘best and most important actor in the history of cinema’ by David Thomson (1975)
The article will argue that the festival has helped to increase understanding of Bristol’s screen heritage that included the city’s recognition as a UNESCO City of Film in 2017, as well as having an economic function in promoting film tourism to the city
This discussion relates these areas of screen tourism to the emerging literature on festival studies, focusing on the role of curatorial practices and the various ways in which they try to manage the tension between a cultural and educative function, and an economic role in creating a ‘brand’ that might draw tourists to the city

Summary

Introduction

Cary Grant, born as Archibald Leach in a working-class area of Bristol in the South West of England, UK in 1904, became one of Hollywood’s most celebrated stars, hailed as the ‘best and most important actor in the history of cinema’ by David Thomson (1975).

Results

Conclusion