The Komedi Bioscoop
Early Cinema Colonial Indonesia
Dafna Ruppin
- 360 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
The Komedi Bioscoop
Early Cinema Colonial Indonesia
Dafna Ruppin
About This Book
This fascinating study of early cinema in the Netherlands Indies explores the influences of new media technology on colonial society. The Komedi Bioscoop traces the emergence of a local culture of movie-going in the Netherlands Indies (present-day Indonesia) from 1896 until 1914. It outlines the introduction of the new technology by independent touring exhibitors, the constitution of a market for moving picture shows, the embedding of moving picture exhibitions within the local popular entertainment scene, and the Dutch colonial authorities' efforts to control film consumption and distribution. Dafna Ruppin focuses on the cinema as a social institution in which technology, race, and colonialism converged. In her illuminating study, moving picture venues in the Indiesâranging from canvas or bamboo tents to cinema palaces of brick and stoneâare perceived as liminal spaces in which daily interactions across boundaries could occur within colonial Indonesia's multi-ethnic and increasingly polarized colonial society.