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As explained, my research took place at two cinemas that held matinees for the over-60s: the Rio Cinema in Dalston, East London and the Clapham Picturehouse in South London. During the period of research there were a number of similar matinees held across the UK. The Picturehouse Cinema group has 19 cinemas nationwide, with five in London, all of which host Silver Screen matinees. In addition to the programme run by Picturehouse Cinemas, just under half of the venues in the Odeon cinema chain offer Senior Screens for the over-50s, with seven of their 25 London cinemas offering the service. In addition, like the Rio, a large number of independent cinemas host such events across the country. As such, the events held at the two research sites are representative of a wider pattern of exhibition across the UK. My reason for choosing these two sites was practical — they were the first two to allow me to conduct research. Despite this, they ended up shaping my findings by offering distinct ‘social cinema scenes’

(Puwar, 2007).

The Rio Cinema Classic Matinee takes place on the first or second Wednesday of the month. The matinee has external funding and is offered to the over-60s free, on production of a ‘freedom pass’.20 One free cup of tea or coffee and a slice of cake are available from the cafe on production of a ticket. The audience is made up of those attending with care homes or community groups and those attending independently. The films screened are programmed specifically for the matinee, and there is a 20 minute interval about two thirds of the way through. The

programme is a mixture of ‘classic’ films - generally those recently re-mastered and re-released - and more contemporary titles, often a month or two after

showing in the mainstream programme (see Appendix One). The cinema has one screen, so the matinee audience is the only audience found in the cinema for the duration of the event. The maximum audience is 360. It usually fills to capacity and rarely falls below half of that.

In contrast, the Clapham Picturehouse Silver Screen is a twice-weekly event. On Tuesdays and Thursdays before 5pm tickets for the over-60s are offered at the reduced price of £4 (this is half the price of the standard concessionary rate of £8), and free tea and biscuits are provided. The audience is made up of those

attending individually or as part of a social group; there are no community groups or care homes at these screenings. The cinema has four screens, and offers a choice of five films on any given day, all of which are also showing as part of the mainstream programme. More often than not these are contemporary releases. All screenings are also open to people under-60 at the standard ticket price. On Thursdays, the cinema hosts its ‘Big Scream’ cinema club for parents and babies up to 12-months-old. While they often dominate, then, the Silver Screen audience

20T he Freedom Pass is the free travel pass for public transport available to people over-60 and disabled people living in London.

is not the only one found at the cinema. There is the potential to seat 472, but the Silver Screen audience rarely rises above 50, and there tend to be no more than 30 people in any one screening.

Across both, the majority of the audience is female, reflecting UK-wide statistics that show a female skew in cinema attendance (UK Film Council, 2009:118).

While similar in sentiment, the matinees offered by the two research sites vary considerably. The different temporalities of the two types of matinee, and the distribution of the audience between one or four screens, generate quite distinct

‘social cinema scenes’ (Puwar, 2007). A sense of these can, I think, be garnered from the different ways in which the two are advertised:

The Rio’s monthly Classic Matinees take place on the first or second Wednesday of the month. There is an interval for every film, and extra seating is provided in the foyer. We are delighted that thanks to funding from the Big Lottery's Reaching Communities Programme we are able to offer free admission for the Over 60's! Please come along and enjoy a film and a chat!’

The Rio also produces a flyer for each film that is distributed widely in the local area, and handed out at the end of the preceding matinee.

The Clapham Picture house meanwhile offers this description:

‘On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (before 5.00) anyone over 60 can see any film for just £4, and receive complementary tea, coffee and biscuits in the relaxed atmosphere of our cafe-bar.’

Importantly, while different in tone, these blurbs both emphasise the sociability offered by the event: the Rio literally offering an invitation to a ‘chat’, and the Clapham Picturehouse suggesting the ‘relaxed’ conviviality of a cafe.

In their comprehensive study of film consumption in Nottingham, Jancovich et al (2003) highlight the need to understand ‘that the meanings of different modes of film consumption are tied to their location within the cultural geography of the city’

(2003: 31). This concurs with Hubbard’s (2002) argument that the distinctions between cinemas and audiences are mapped onto the landscape to produce cultural distinctions between places (2002:1243). He argues that this implicit labelling in turn helps us to determine whether or not they are for people ‘like us’, thus reinforcing such associations and maintaining a pre-reflexive distinction of cinemas along cultural lines (2002:1257; 2003a: 267). Both the Rio and Clapham Picturehouse are independent cinemas. The Rio is a non-profit registered charity while the Clapham Picturehouse is part of the independent Picturehouse/City Screen chain. While not unique, these cinemas offer an experience different to that found at the multiplex, and both seem keen to offer an alternative to the clinical environments of the contemporary cinema-going experience.

The distinctiveness of the Rio is very much shaped by its history. Its art deco design (see figs. 1 and 2) is maintained from a 1937 refurbishment and unlike many of the older cinemas that are still running, it retains a single screen. As such, the shape of the Rio reflects the independent, non-commercial, nature of the cinema and connotes a particular - classed - type of cinema-going. While there are no period features of the original 1909 building clearly evident at the Clapham Picturehouse, its stripped floorboards and chalkboard signs similarly connote its status as an independently run venue, while also clearly marking it as part of the

‘quality’ Picturehouse/City Screen chain (see figs. 3 and 4). While their independent status means that both cinemas offer films other than major Hollywood releases, rarely these days would they draw from art house cinema.

Rather, they tend to programme the more popular end of foreign-language and British films as well as American ‘independent’ cinema. Such programming would tend to connote audiences with relatively high levels of cultural capital, a classed connotation mirrored by the interiors (Bourdieu, 1984).

Figure. 1. The exterior of the Rio Cinema, Dalston

Figure 2. Usherettes upstairs at the Rio, approx. 1940s. Image courtesy of Rio Cinema

Figure. 3. The exterior of the Clapham Picturehouse 9

Figure. 4. The handwritten signs of the Clapham Picturehouse

Despite the cinemas being of similar type (ie. independent), the audiences were demographically diverse, complicating arguments from Hubbard (2003a, 2003b, 2002) and Jancovich et al. (2003) and I found the ‘riskless risk’ Hubbard describes being, in part, constituted in the moment of practice. This is discussed further in the following chapter, here it seems important to explain why I chose to limit my sample to women.