Charting Scottish Tourism and the Early Scenic Film: Access, Identity and Landscape PDF
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Charting Scottish Tourism and the Early Scenic Film Access, Identity and Landscape Samantha Wilson Charting Scottish Tourism and the Early Scenic Film Samantha Wilson Charting Scottish Tourism and the Early Scenic Film Access, Identity and Landscape Samantha Wilson Glasgow, Scotland ISBN 978-3-030-39152-2 ISBN 978-3-030-39153-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39153-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such namesareexemptfromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreefor general use. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinforma- tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeen made.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmaps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan Cover design by eStudioCalamar This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For my mother and father, who taught me to love the Scottish landscape, even before I had the chance to set foot in it. Acknowledgments This book exists at the intersection of two very different projects. The first was my doctoral thesis tracing the role of the natural sublime in environmentalaestheticsandvisualcultureandthesecondapostdoctoral research project interrogating the historical links between the sites and circulation of scenic films and the spatial identities of Scottish communi- tiesattheturnofthecentury.Forthisreasonthereareseveralindividuals and groups to thank for their commitment and contribution to this final piece of work. I would first like to thank Professor Peter Rist (Concordia University) and Professor John Caughie (University of Glasgow) for their indispens- able support and insight over the course of both projects. Without both of their contributions to different stages of this research this book would not have been possible. I would like to acknowledge Professor Martin Lefebvre (Concordia University)whosesupportandcommentsintheearlystagesofthisproject provided the theoretical foundations for the rest of my research. I am also grateful to a number of libraries and archives who made their resources available to me over the past several years including the Moving Image Archive at the National Library of Scotland (formerly the ScottishScreenArchive),theBritishFilmInstitute,HistoricEnvironment Scotland,theNationalArchivesofScotland,InverclydeCouncilArchives, Bute Museum and the London Metropolitan Archives. vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Société et Culture whose Postdoctoral Research Grant funded the two year project, ‘A Trip to Bonnie Scotland: Regional Scottish Identities and the Circulation and Exhibition of Early Scenic Films at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.’ Iwouldliketo thank theInternational JournalofScottish Theatre and Screen whohavegraciouslyallowedmetoincludearevisedversionofthe article“ATrip‘DoontheWatter’DuringtheGlasgowFair:WorkingClass Leisure Patterns and the Role of the Scenic Film at the Turn of the Cen- tury” which I published in the journal in 2017. Portions of the second and sixth chapters of this book are derived in part from Samantha Wil- son,“TheAestheticsofAstonishmentandContemplationinEarlyBritish Scenic Filmmaking,” published in Early Popular Visual Culture on July 2nd 2016, reprinted by permission of Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor&FrancisGroup,availableonline:https://www.tandfonline.com/ doi/abs/10.1080/17460654.2016.1183362?journalCode=repv20. Lastly,IoweaparticulardebtofappreciationtobothmyparentsLaura and David Wilson and my partner Neil without whom this book would not have come into being. Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Home and Away: The Rise of the Walking Tour and Guidebook 23 3 Mapping, Ordering and Recording the Tourist’s Landscape 51 4 Reclaiming Space and Fortifying Identity: Working Class Travel During the Glasgow Fair 75 5 I Never Leave Home Without It: Amateur Filmmaking in the Interwar Period 99 6 Conclusion 123 Index 135 ix CHAPTER 1 Introduction Abstract This introductory chapter explores how the interplay between material forces and aesthetic and cultural discourses paved the way for nature appreciation to be embedded within the tourism industry in Scot- land between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. Several representational technologies played a role in this process including pho- tography and film. The latter, in the guise of the scenic film, renego- tiated one of the central debates surrounding first-hand contact with nature and its aesthetic parameters—that is how to frame the embodied gaze.ThisquestionwasparticularlyimportantwithintheScottishcontext because of the impact of transborder tourism and the circulation of land- scape imagery during the period. Both regional and international leisure patterns transformed not only how individual communities moved and looked at the spaces they called home but also how they conceptualised their relationship with the natural world. Keywords Nature appreciation · Scenic filmmaking · Aesthetic philosophy · Travel and tourism · Scotland Jean Adamson spent her childhood holidays outside of the Highland vil- lage of Ardentinny. In her private memoirs she described that period of her life with reverent detail. It was there in the forest that she created her own magical world detached from the cultural and economic pres- sures that surrounded her family back home in the mining town of High © The Author(s) 2020 1 S. Wilson, Charting Scottish Tourism and the Early Scenic Film, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39153-9_1 2 S. WILSON Blantyre. When revisiting these memories Jean describes herself as being completely“absorbed”bythenaturalworldaroundher,where“Lifeitself seemedtoproliferatefasterthanathome”.1 Withaheavysenseofnostal- gia,theseperiodsofleisurebecamea“timelessworld”with“someatavis- tic power that made us think and behave like our ancestors… extracting the savour of life from the rhythm of nature and getting myths from the lips of the story tellers”.2 The experiences she retells and the rhetoric she uses to do so are, of course, not entirely unique. They reflect a com- plexsetof discoursesandperformedbehaviourembedded inthefounda- tions of the cultural identity of her home country of Scotland, discourses which would have a profound effect on the spatial patterns and expecta- tionswhichwoulddrivethedomestictourismindustryforthenextseveral decades. Over a period of a few hundred years, looking at and moving through natural spaces became central features of what particular socio-economic groupsdidwhileawayfromhomeonholiday.Infact,theemergenceand valorisation of nature appreciation as a performed set of first-hand expe- riences went hand in hand with the development of a range of techno- logical,economicandpoliticalchangeswhichmadeincreasingamountsof leisuretravelpossibleforalargerandlargerpercentageoftheBritishpop- ulation. Individuals and groups chose to spend their often-precious time outside of work in natural landscapes because, in the words of John Urry andJonasLarsen,they“anticipate[d]”thoseexperienceswouldprovidea kind of pleasure or benefit that was unlike anything they could acquire in their regular day to day lives.3 Those benefits, whether physical, psycho- logical,aestheticorintellectualwereconstructedbyaseriesofoverlapping discourses which circulated through a number of texts and devices such as topographical literature, guidebooks, photography, and by the turn of the twentieth century, cinema. Each of these representational technolo- giescontributedto“formalizing”particular“patternsofappreciationand mobility” extending the reach of the initial philosophical debates to the middle and working classes.4 In Tourist Gaze 3.0, Urry and Larsen argue that this combination of the “means of collective travel”, “the desire for travel”andtheriseofrepresentationaltechnologiessetthefoundationfor theemergenceofthe“touristgaze”whichbecame“acorecomponentof western modernity”.5 Charting Scottish Tourism and the Early Scenic Film interrogates how one of these technologies, the moving image, not only reconstructed the Scottish tourist map but renegotiated the already complex relationship
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