Het bioscoopjournaal als bemiddelaar tussen traditie en moderniteit. Polygoons HOLLANDS NIEUWS reportages over Groningen, 1921-1939

The Newsreel as a Mediator between Tradition and Modernity: Polygoon 's HOLLANDS NIEUWS items on Groningen, 1921-1959

The role that the city of Groningen played as a subject in the national newsreel HOLLANDS NIEUWS was an ambivalent one. On a local level (the local audience as well as the Groningen newspapers), most attention was paid to the values of entertainment and recognition (of the locals on the screen by the audience). This was coherent with the strategy of Polygoon to issue motion pictures with a high commercial potential. In this way the local audience could more or less share in the modern experience, associated with motion pictures and big cities. On the other hand, there was the strategy of Polygoon to stress (cultural) continuity and national unity, facing ongoing modernity and the threat of the war some neighboring countries were already engaged in. Festivities, manifestations of national unity, like visits of the royal family, and cultural traditions in Groningen these were mostly the items shown in 'Hollands Nieuws' in the Groningen movie theater. They were set up around static views of parades, clearly with the intention of putting the emphasis on the events of 'official (national) history'. Yet, in these years Groningen was presented in the medium as a stage on which forces of local and national identity and those of modernity were equally keen to get in the centre of attention.