Cutting Bordello Scenes and Dances: Local Regulation and Film Censorship in Norway before 1913

Abstract

W hen Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery’s Film History: Theory and Practice was published in 1985, one of the issues that was most startling was the discussion of local film history. Many readers reacted with surprise or incredulity when they read in the preface: ‘One exciting thing about film historical research that sets it apart from some other branches of history is that it can be conducted nearly anywhere.’ The discussions about the object of historical study, what counted as evidence and what was being explained in film history, changed after the publication of Allen and Gomery’s book, and the new practice that followed was often named ‘revisionist film history’ or ‘the new film history’. The focus on local film history, and how local film history could be fruitful to historical research in film, was often singled out as one of the most important contributions of Allen and Gomery’s book. Local film history has been important in Cinema Studies since 1985, and especially in the study of early film. This has been seen as a sign that the practice of film history changed, not only from a top-down to a bottom-up practice, using new sources and more thorough research methods, but also a change of policy and explanation; from the survey to the minutiae of history. However, it has also in recent years been seen as a sign that the important issues have already been covered, and in their search for new topics, scholars are forced to work with issues and material that are increasingly more minute and marginal, and of interest only to the very few. Local film history, however, is not only ‘stamp collecting’, or an alternative to film history proper, but a new optic; a method and perspective, an opportunity to view and question the big issues and institutionalised histories of cinema, through the small, the local and the marginal. Local film history offers a good way to rethink many of the fundamental questions of film history. In this essay, I will discuss local regulation and censorship of film in Norway before a central Norwegian Board of Film Censors was established in October 1913. Through a case study, or a local historical ‘snapshot’, I will discuss the institutionalised historical version of the establishing of the Norwegian Board of Film Censors. Local censorship before a national board of film censors was established is one concern that needs more study internationally, and an area that can illustrate the need for and value of local film history.