Comparing New Cinema Histories: An Introduction

Comparing New Cinema Histories. Methodologies and Practices from a Global Perspective brings together contributions that focus on historical, contemporary and comparative case studies of film consumption, exhibition strategies, cinema memories and, more generally, practices of cinema-going at a global level. This chapter explores the complexity of comparative historical analysis summarising its main diverse methodological and theoretical challenges. The authors discuss advantages and weaknesses of the comparative approach in historical research, using historian Philippa Levine’s work Is comparative history possible? (2014), which highlights some of the objections moved against the comparative approach such as its association with national histories as well as the tendency to merge comparative history, transnational, or cross-national history and even world history together. As scholars like Levine have clearly highlighted, the comparative approach in historical research presents a variety of challenges but also clear methodological advantages such as allowing the formulation of a set of questions that would otherwise be difficult to pose, or a better understanding of specific case studies whose peculiarities could only be understood if compared to similar individual cases that took place in a different geographical space or time period or cultural setting. The chapter deals with comparative analysis within New Cinema History, where scholars have over the years called for a more systematic comparative approach to the study of cultural, political, and economic aspects of cinema history. It traces the development of comparative methodologies applied to the study of cinema historical research before illustrating the wide variety of case studies included in the volume, which brings together 47 scholars from over 15 different countries working on cinema history. The chapter argues The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative New Cinema Histories is a step further to normalise the comparative method within New Cinema History.