2024 Essays

Elsie Cohen

McKernan, Luke

Elsie Cohen was one of the most versatile and influential figures within British film culture in the first half of the twentieth century. After making her mark as a film journalist in Britain and a publicity and film sales manager in the Netherlands, she found fame as the manager of art house cinemas, notably the Academy in London, playing a huge part in spreading the appreciation of film as art in the 1930s. Because of the importance of her time at the Academy, this profile goes into the sound era. However, each part of Cohen’s career derived from the same idealistic sense of mission, and her pioneering work in so many aspects of silent film cannot be separated from the later parts of her career.