This book has proposed an understanding of film-related memory as a mode of ‘giving an account of oneself’, arguing that talking about film offers people a way to negotiate their individual subjectivities and experiences as viewers, within the normative social frameworks modelled by classical cinema narratives and by the behaviours and reactions expected within a cinema theatre or other viewing space. At the same time, performing a passionate relationship with a film text, creator or moment in cinema history allows the speaker a mode of distinguishing themselves as an individual subject. The spoken and written communications that make up the ethnographic materials analysed in this work can be understood as at once performances of compliance with social norms and at the same time as claims for recognition of an individual self with particular tastes, preferences and memories.

Beginning with a close reading of Dorinne Kondo’s phrase ‘crafting selves’ (1990), which refers both to the construction of a sense of self or identity and to decorative and creative work undertaken by many of her study participants, this chapter considers the role of the work of making or creating in the shaping of a sense of self through engagement with cinema culture. The creative activities of many study participants included designing and hosting their own events, organising screenings, running discussion sessions and creating media content, as well as more personal self-documentation like the hand-drawn maps and diagrams that participants shared with me. By exploring the role of making and crafting in the communication practices of my study participants, this final chapter argues for the study of discourses and communication practices, including the creation and collection of film ephemera, as an essential element in our understanding of film history.

This chapter explores how the self is crafted through narratives about a relationship to cinema, investigating how the physical materials that my study participants collected, archived, created and donated can be understood. Almost all participants in my study created pre-prepared notes and printed life narratives, which many consulted during interviews. Interviewees often gifted copies of memos, notes or timelines of their lives, or copies of photographs and posters, prompting me to think about how viewers integrate the stories of their lives into cinema discourse.