Making the pilgrimage: Cary Grant’s hometown, Bristol City of Film

Crofts, Charlotte

Abstract

Film tourism extends to paying homage to not only film locations (“set-jetting”), but also to places that have a physical connection to characters, actors and celebrities, including their place of birth. Global film icon Cary Grant, heralded as the “best and most important actor in the history of cinema” by film critic David Thompson, is most often imagined as an American actor, but he was born as Archibald Leach in Bristol, England in 1904. The Cary Grant Comes Home For The Weekend Festival seeks to celebrate his Bristol roots, develop new audiences for his work and recreate the golden age of cinema-going. The festival runs biannually and is now in its third edition (23-25 November 2018). The first two festivals (2014, 2016) attracted visitors from all over the world, including France, Italy, Ireland, Australia and the USA. The festival has also been on tour to Hannover, Germany (2017), and hopes to visit Bordeaux in 2019, two of Bristol’s first twin cities (since 1947).

In addition to traditional cinema screenings and illustrated talks, the festival hosts events in special locations, such as a gala at Bristol Hippodrome, where young Archie used to work, a cream tea at the Avon Gorge hotel where he used to stay, a pop-up event next to the Cary Grant statue during Bristol Harbour Festival, celebrating the importance of sea-faring in his incredible journey from Archie to becoming Cary Grant. The Looking For Archie walking tour retraces Archie’s hometown haunts, and uncovers Bristol’s hidden cinema history (first run as part of the Being Human Festival of the Humanities 2017 on the theme of ‘Lost and Found’)– which we are now developing into a mobile app in collaboration with Destination Bristol and Bristol Film Office, under the umbrella of Bristol City of Film*.

The Looking for Archie app will lead participants on a guided tour of Bristol City Centre and offer insights into both the locations that young Archie used to frequent, and the places at which he was photographed by the Bristol Evening Post on his many visits home after he’d become Cary Grant. The app uncovers layers of interlinked and little known local history through a place-based journey of discovery. Each layer offers new perspectives on engagement with environment and lived experience. The app builds on my research on screen heritage and place-making drawing on the emerging discipline of New Cinema History, which focuses on the socio-cultural history of cinema, including my award-winning Curzon Memories App (Learning on Screen Best Multimedia Award, 2013) and The Lost Cinemas of Castle Park App – which uncovers Bristol hidden city centre cinemas – a project which emerged out of the City Strata AHRC REACT Heritage Sandbox. Both of theses apps were tested with young people, including students at Fairfield, Cary Grant’s old school. Based on user-feedback it was discovered that cinema history really comes alive when experienced “on location”.

This presentation will explore the concept of Benjaiminian “aura” and the frisson that visitors feel walking in the footsteps of their movie idol. It will also discuss user-experience design and the desirability of “sweet spots” and “magic moments”– where what is there now rubs against what was (or might have been) there before in satisfying or unexpected ways.

*Bristol has recently been designated as a UNESCO City of Film in recognition of both the city’s flourishing film production ecology and its screen heritage, from the headquarters of Aardman (Morph, Shawn the Sheep) and the BBC Natural History Unit (David Attenborough’s Blue Planet) to the early cinema inventor, William Friese-Greene and the birthplace of Hollywood film star, Cary Grant. Working with Destination Bristol and Bristol Film Office, my current research seeks to use locative media to map Bristol’s contemporary and historic screen heritage in the places where it actually happened.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Cinema, TV series and tourism conference, 2018
• Start Date: Oct 12, 2018
• End Date: Oct 12, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jan 5, 2023
• Keywords: Cary Grant; Screen Heritage; Smartphone Apps; Locative Media; Celebrity Aura
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10289869