Cinema in Context



How To Do – Research questions


A wide range of questions can be asked about the history of film culture. Encyclopaedic questions about “who, what, where, when” require a different approach than questions about quantity, cohesion or change. In some cases, a simple count will be sufficient, while other cases may require a more complex analysis. Sometimes the answer you seek may be found directly on the Cinema Context website, and sometimes it may be necessary to put an additional research tool to use. The tutorial will introduce you to a number of methods and techniques by means of sample questions, which you may adapt to your own needs.

Your research design will usually look as follows:

Question – What do you want to know?
Method – How will you go about it?
Evaluation– How will you interpret your results?

You will recognise this approach in the examples.

Simple questions

The answers to the following questions may be found directly on the Cinema Context website.

1. How many feature films were shown in Utrecht in 1931?
2. How many cinemas in Rotterdam screened films in 1931?
3. What percentage of Amsterdam cinemas showed French films in 1928?
4. How many American feature films were banned by the board of censors?
5. How many banned films were screened in 1930?
6. Where in Utrecht could one attend private screenings of the Netherlands Film League (Filmliga)?
7. When did Dutch music hall and cabaret artist Louis Davids start performing in cinemas? And when did he stop doing this?
8. In which cities did the Salvation Army organise film shows in a travelling cinema?

Questions for advanced users

Finding the answer to these questions requires the use of additional research tools. In the following examples, we’ll make use of a database. Both access to the internet and to MS Access 2003 (or later) on your computer is required.

1. Which films directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and starring Pola Negri, were shown in Groningen? Method: search Cinema Context in combination with IMDb.
2. How many French films were shown in Rotterdam in every year between 1922 and 1925? Method: transfer a search result from Cinema Context to a database and integrate it in a query.
3. How many long documentary films were shown in the Netherlands in 1934, and in which countries were those films produced? Method: transfer a search result from Cinema Context to a database and create a new query.
4. How many cinemas were active in Rotterdam in every year between 1921 and 1940? Method: transfer a search result from Cinema Context to a database and create a new query.
5. Which cinema owned by Abraham Tuschinski has shown the film De Jantjes (1934) most often? Method: transfer two search results from Cinema Context to a database and create a complex query.
6. Which films were screened by the Netherlands Film League in Utrecht between 1927 and 1933? Method: transfer two search results from Cinema Context to a database and combine them in a pivot table.
7. How many French films were shown in Utrecht and in Groningen in each year between 1922 and 1925? Method: transfer three search results from Cinema Context to a database and combine them in a pivot table.