Current events and programmes

Welcome to 2010. This page has information about programmes I've organised and events I'm contributing to in the near future. For more details about long-term projects and my background and CV, see About Me. - Ian Christie

 

Musical London  2.30 Tuesdays, Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Sq, London WC1

The second part of this year-long exploration of the capital's culture looks at music in the city. From the 18th century satirical Beggar's Opera, filmed in 1952 by rising theatre genius Peter Brook, to the dawn of pirate radio evoked in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels, this is largely a story of irreverent popular culture clashing with establishment prejudice. Much of the London shown here was studio built, whether in Hollywood for Cukor's My Fair Lady or at Shepperton for Reed's Oliver!. But above alll these are films about the city nurturing talent and creating new opportunities for musicians and audiences alike.  

 

5 Jan    The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger, 1948)

 

12 Jan  A Hard Day’s Night (Dick Lester, 1964)

 

19 Jan  Sally in Our Alley (Maurice Elvey, 1931)

 

26 Jan  The Great Mr Handel (Norman Walker, 1942)

 

2 Feb    Champagne Charlie (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1944)

 

9 Feb    The Beggar’s Opera(Peter Brook, 1952) + ext Threepenny Opera

 

16 Feb   My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964)

 

23 Feb   Performance (Donald Cammell, Nic Roeg, 1969)

 

2 Mar     Oliver! (Carol Reed, 1968)

 

9 Mar     Young Soul Rebels (Isaac Julien, 1991)

 

16 Mar   O Lucky Man! (Lindsay Anderson, 1973)

 

 

The London Screen Study Collection at Birkbeck College exists to promote awareness of and research into London’s screen history, as part of London’s Screen Archives: the Regional Network. All screenings are on Tuesdays at 2.30 in the Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, WC1. Main contact a.english@bbk.ac.uk.

 

The theme of London Screen Study Collection screenings throughout 2009-10 is 'Cultural London'. After Literary London, Term 2 (Jan-Mar) looks at Musical London and Term 3 (April-June) at Artistic London. These free screenings are every Tuesday at 2.30, in Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

 

Now online: the new London's Screen Archives YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/LondonsScreenArchive

Links to other activities and events

    Quick Links

  Coming next ...

 

  31 Jan - 'Just what was modern

  about Modernism? And why was

  film so important to it?' An illustrated  

  introduction to modernist film, pm at 

  Cambridge Arts Cinema, in connection

  with Lutz Becker's exhibition at Kettle's

  Yard Gallery, Modern Times: Responding

  to Chaos

 

 

 

  See also the exhibition opening at the

  new London Film Museum on 'Charlie

  Chaplin - the Great Londoner' (from

  5 Jan, Belevedere Road, Waterloo)

 

  1 Feb - Introducing Bergman's The

  Seventh Seal for NFTS, 6.30 at BFI

  Southbank

   

  5 Feb - 'Blind Spots: what about the

  history that doesn't get screened?'

  Giving Nick Burton Memorial Lecture at 

  Canterbury Christ Church University on

  history and film

 

  4 Mar - Introducing Paradjanov's

  Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors,

  6.30 at BFI Southbank

 

  5 Mar - PhotoFilm conference at Tate

  Modern

 

  7 Mar - Film & TV Walk Muswell Hill.

  Meet at Library, 11.00am.     

    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

   And recently ...

    

  17 Dec - 'What Do We See in Films?

   Gave the Keynote Richard Gregory lecture at

   Bristol Vision Institute's inaugural symposium,

   University of Bristol.

 

  6 Dec - I helping to launch The YouTube

   Reader, a great collection of essays exploring

   the implications of YouTube, distributed in the

   UK by Wallflower, at their cafe-gallery

   Cinephilia West,171 Westbourne Grove, W11

 

  3 Dec- Keynote at Polish cinema conference at

   Cornerhouse, Manchester: 'Poland - but not as

   we knew it', about some of the 'deviant' Polish

   films and filmmakers of the 60s, including Has's

   The Saragossa Manuscript (below).  

   

    

 

   30 Nov - talk in Brighton:'Britain's Lost Cinema: 

   the Ones that Got Away'. about unmade films

   planned by Michael Powell, David Lean (below,

   John Box design for Nostromo) and Terry Gilliam,

   speculating on how these might have affected

   the directors' reputations. University of Brighton

 

   

 

  20-22 Nov: Europa Cinemas Annual Conference

   in Warsaw: Europe's exhibitors facing the digital

   future. I presented a survey of European

   websites that try to guide intending filmgoers,

   and asked whethernthese favour studio releases

   at the expense of European films.

 

  17 Nov - Bristol University Art lectures 'Three

   Celebrations in Eisenstein'  (for details see link)

   

  2 Nov - Talk at the BFI Library, in the series

   Researchers' Tales, about work on the recent

   UKFC report on the Cultural Impact of British

   Film (see link)

 

   30 Oct - Took part in a panel at the European

    Psychoanalytic Film Festival at BAFTA in London,

    discussing Alexei Popogrebsky's seductive Simple

   Things (2007) with the director and Igor Kadyrov

 

   

 

    24 Oct - I chaired a panel discussing Gideon

    Koppel's wonderful docu-fiction about a

    Welsh village, Sleep Furiously (below)

    at the Birkbeck Cinema

 

   

 

    14 Oct - previewed Anthony Asquith's

     restored Underground (1928) showing

     in the London Film Festival on 23 Oct,

     on Radio 3's Nightwaves   

 

    29 Sept - Birkbeck MA in History of Film

    & Visual Media Core Course started with

    Magic Lantern show, by Jeremy Booker, 

    with live accompaniment by Stephen Horne -

    who accompanied Abel Gance's anti-war

    landmark J'Accuse (1918) in Pordenone and

    at the Barbican.

 

   

  22 Sept - Jack Cardiff: Painter with

    Light - a tribute to Jack, with clips from

    some of his best films, at the Cambridge

    Film Festival. 

 

   15 Sept - 'Defining the Look': talk about

   John Box's production design in the 70s and 

    80s at Cinephilia, Wallflower's new film cafe

    on Westbourne Grove, at 7.00.

   

   14 Sept  - Introducing Godard's Masculin-

   Feminin at BFI Southbank for National Film

   and Television School's Passport to Cinema

    

   11-13 Sept - Screendance  workshop at

   Brighton University

 

    6-12 Sept - Synapsis Summer School,

    Bertinoro, Italy. I led a seminar on this year's

    theme, 'Shadows', in cinema, with Giulio Iacoli.

    This ranged over shadow-theatre and 20s

    Expressionism, up to 'shadow' Gay and Black

    identities in film.

 

    4 Sept - Keynote talk at the University of

    Winchester's conferenceFraming Film -

    Cinema and the Visual Arts: 'Crafting

    Worlds: the work of the production

    designer'

 

    4 August - launch of my new book on John

    Box at BFI Southbank, with an illustrated

    survey of John's career, followed by a rare

    screening of one of his most impressive later

    films, Michael Mann's The Keep.

 

   11 July, University of Bristol conference

     on Colour and the Moving Image. In a

     keynote, 'Why do we think we see in colour

      anyway?, I put the case for a cognitive

     approach to  distinguishing the perception of

     colour and b/w, which didn't convince everyone,

     but pointed towards some experimental work I

     hope to develop. (see 17 Dec above)

    

     6 July, University of Paris Summer School.

     Plenary on Screens Across the City, from

     anoramas to urban display networks, via

     'cinema'

 

    1 July  BFI Southbank  As part of One Giant

     Leap, I indulged my love of Jules Verne and

     astronomy in an illustrated tour of 16 - 19c lunar

     fantasies, Trips to the Moon, including

     Offenbach and Melies's great 1902 film.

 

     27 June - 1 July: led Europa Cinemas

     Workshop for exhibitors at Bologna Cinema

     Ritrovato Festival on 'The Challenge of

     Generations'.

 

    18 June - led a walk around film-related

    sites  in Haringey centred on Green Lanes.

    Including locations for Face, Long Good Friday and

    the ex-Premier Cinema in Turnpike Lane.

 

    9/10 June - US archivist Paul Spehr was in the

     UK as  joint guest of Birkbeck and BFI Southbank

     to talk about  W K L Dickson, the subject of his

     superb new  biography, The Man Who Made 

     Movies (Libbey). Paul presented Dickson and

     Edison films at the Barbican, BFI Southbank and

     at Birkbeck.

 

    7/8 June - British Silents Festival and the

    Sounds of Early Cinema in Britain

    conference. During these two adjoining events,

    I led a walk around early cinema sites in

    central London, then interviewed American

    conductor Gillian Anderson after her brilliant

    performance of the original music for Griffith's 

    Way Down East, and gave a paper about

    musical accompaniment in London film

    shows before 1914, at the Soundsconference.  

 

  5/6 June - European Experimental

   Television  symposium at Birkbeck Cinema, with

    controbutions by Dorota Ostrowska, Michael

    Temple, Mike Allen and me, and Laura Mulvey

    introducing her and Peter Wollen's experimental

    C4 drama The Bad Sister. Papers from this 

    forthcoming in Critical Studies in Television (MUP)

 

    5 June, Tate Britain - panel with Horace Ove 

     and Colin Prescod about the 70s independent film

     scene and Pressure, as part of The Story of

     London.

 

    3 June  National Gallery, London, an

     illustrated talk in connection with the Picasso

     exhibition: Picasso and Film: An Uncon-

     summated Affair?, which considered why

     Picasso didn't make any films despite his early

     and continuing fascination with the medium. 

    

   7 May - Nightwaves, BBC Radio 3,  discussion

     between me and Michael Billington about 'removing

     the fourth wall' in theatre and cinema.

 

    10 May  Watershed, Bristol  I introduced

     Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and 

     Death as part of Pictures in the Mind, discussing

     the accuracy of its neurological casework for

     1946. 

 

     

In print ...

 

The Art of Film: John Box and Production Design, Wallflower, 2009 (see About Me, and review by Brian Macfarlane in the Jan 2010 Sight and Sound)

 

The new Oxford Companion to English Literature, radically revised by Dinah Birch and on which I served as an associate editor, has a range of new film entries, including Chaplin, Hitchcock, Greenaway and Jarman (as well as Ealing and Carry On...). A very enjoyable browse, if I may say so.

 

An article I co-wrote with John Sedgwick has just appeared in a book from Siegen University: "‘Fumbling Towards Some New Form of Art?’: The Changing Composition of Film Programmes in Britain, 1908–1914", in Annemone Ligensa and Klaus Kreimeier (eds), Film 1900: Technology, Perception, Culture, Libbey / Indiana University Press, 2009, 151-163

 

'Seeing Red' - article on the Red Shoes restoration and its implications, Sight and Sound, Aug 2009, pp. 36-38 - plus follow-up letters in Oct and Nov issues

 

'History from beneath', review of Anchoress, Comrades and Winstanley , all new on DVD, Sight and Sound, Aug 2009, p. 84.

 

Stories we tell ourselves: The Cultural Impact of UK Film 1946-2006, UK Film Council, 2009 (co-author) - available to download from UKFC website.  

 

'"Dying for art": Michael Powell's journey towards Duke Bluebeard's  Castle and the filmic art-work of the future', in Griselda Pollock and Victoria Anderson, eds., Bluebeard's legacy; death and secrets from Bartok to Hitchcock, I. B. Tauris, 2009

 

'Text Rules?' - on practice-based research, Journal of Media Practice 9: 3, pp. 275-7. 

 

'Histories of the Future: mapping the avant-garde', Film History, v. 20, n. 1, 2008, pp. 6-13.

 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

Now out ...

 

What Do You Know About Me? [Di me cosa ne sai] - a punchy new film by Valerio Jalongo about the mysterious disappearance of Italian cinema. I make a brief appearance to explain how the multiplexes brought no variety of choice. see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1514825/

 

Scotland on Screen (BBC4, 16.9.09) I contributed to Pauline Law's survey of how Scotland has appeared in film, including bits on Braveheart, Rob Roy, I Know Where I'm Going! and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

 

 

Commentary for the new Criterion DVD of That Hamilton Woman (Alexander Korda, 1941)

 

 

 

 

And coming soon ...

 

Scorsese on Scorsese  4th ed

 

A fourth edition of this interview-based book, with David Thompson, is in preparation, and should appear early next year. This will include discussion of  the recent music films (No Direction Home and Shine a Light), The Departed and Shutter Island - due out in 2010.

 

 

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      Phonomenal! 

     

    Understanding Cameraphones

       

      What would Marshall McLuhan have made of the explosion of cameraphones? Hot or cold medium? I have been trying to scope the anthropology of this intriguing phenomenon in several recent lectures. 

       

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      Ian Christie