Picturing Cornwall

Cornwall’s representation on screen has been dominated by the romantic coastal edge, from the earliest days of the moving image to the recent BBC adaptation of Winston Graham’s maritime adventure series Poldark. Drawing on art history to illuminate the construction of Cornwall on film, Rachel Moseley examines newsreels, contemporary art and amateur films, and mainstream film and television. Stressing the sociopolitical significance of the moving image, Moseley investigates the absence of Cornwall’s interior on film, arguing that the emphasis on the coast in Cornwall’s screen history has had a significant and ongoing economic impact on the area. The first book to focus on the region’s construction in the moving image, Picturing Cornwall is sure to generate new lines of inquiry across both film studies and human geography.