Conclusion: Anatomy of a Film Studio

This chapter brings together the arguments advanced in the book concerning how a materialist, ‘tectonic’ focuses on a major, surviving film studio during pivotal years of its lifetime set in train an infrastructure that contributed to its longevity as a major international film studio that is still operating. It constitutes a test case of how a micro history of such an enterprise augments and on occasion revises established historical interpretations. It reflects on the contrasting experience of Denham, Britain’s other premier studio also opened in 1936, but which was closed by Rank in 1952. Why Pinewood survived, it is argued, is rooted in the post-war years, the development of the studios’ physical and material infrastructure and practices, and the experience of producing films within a culture of constraint, key areas which have featured as the book’s central themes.