The cinema is a temporal location as well as a geographical one – a means to pass time and to be transported to another time, as well as a physical place to be. This chapter considers the temporal nature of cinema from a range of perspectives. The amount of time spent at the cinema, or watching films at home or at special screening events, can be understood as time out of one’s life, when we step away from everyday time to experience the manipulated time of film editing. Stepping into a cinema theatre, or engaging with a film at a private screening event, can also take us into another historical era, as we imaginatively inhabit the period in which the film narrative takes place. This chapter also considers time spent in the cinema as a temporal encounter, both with the film text and with other viewers. Discussions of cinemagoing and film viewership that focus on time communicate a variety of aspects of the speaker’s self, from experience of, or interest in, a particular historical moment to more quotidian tasks and habits such as killing time between errands or obligations. Thinking about cinema as a means of time travel and of passing time allows us an insight into the hopes and aspirations, as well as the nuisances and frustrations, experienced by film viewers of a particular place and time.

Engaging with a film text can also present a means to order, control or change one’s perception of time. Many participants in my study understood cinema content as a way to connect with or reorganise their memories of times past. The second part of this chapter will explore what film as memory aid can mean for both the 1930–55 generation who grew up during the war and Occupation, and for the later generation born after 1955 who wished to establish some connection to that period.