Faith, fun and fear in the Dutch Orthodox Protestant milieu: Towards a non-cinema centred approach to Cinema History

Since the early 2000s, the New Cinema History has resulted in a growing interest in historical audiences and the socio-cultural dynamics of cinemagoing. A major impetus behind this move towards a social history of film culture was Richard Maltby’s call for an integration of cinema history and the general history of which it is part. In line with Maltby, this article proposes milieu-analysis as a method to situate research on film circulation and consumption more firmly in an analysis of its societal context. After a brief methodological reflection, it examines film culture in the Dutch Bible Belt to illustrate the benefits of such
approach. The Orthodox Protestant milieu represents a fascinating case because of its idiosyncratic recreational patterns, including a near total rejection of the cinema as an entertainment and educational medium. Before 1940, this self-imposed abstinence from watching movies was widely respected and rarely questioned. However, in aftermath of World War Two and in the context of rapid (rural) modernization, traditional Orthodox Protestant leisure culture came under increased pressure from the inside and outside, causing strong ideological tensions between advocates of liberalization and defenders of the ‘true Christian faith,’ between church elites and grass-roots authorities. As a result, the
cinema contributed in a powerful way to the social identity formation of post-war Dutch Orthodox Protestantism.