Material culture and the cinema collector: a case study from Franco-era Spain

Situated at the juncture of oral history research and the study of material culture, this article analyses a specific case of the cinema spectator as collector. It draws on a growing body of collection theory to examine the multiple meanings and functions of collecting and collectable objects within the specific socio-economic and political context of post-Civil War Spain. This study is grounded in two extended oral history interviews with a single informant conducted in the room where his collection of film memorabilia is housed. It thus seeks to read both the collector's narrative account and the objects on display for their role in the elaboration of a self, an identity assembled from the selected traces of pre-existing stories, bodies and gestures and anchored in the historical moment of Francoism and its aftermath.