Dear All,
Sorry for cross-posting.
Please find below two events hosted by the CENTRE for FILM STUDIES at the
UNIVERSITY of ST ANDREWS.
Attached also is a copy of the Centre's whole Spring Programme.
All welcome.
With best wishes,
Saer Maty Ba
TALK
17 February, 2009
5:15 pm. Centre for Film Studies
Lecture Theatre, Ground floor, Arts Building, University of St. Andrews
Prof. Murray Pomerance, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada
A Modern Gesture: Perpetual Motion and Screen Suspense
A discussion of modernity and cinema focuses on the construct of the “screen
gesture,” in which through various formations the cinematic moment
configures and symbolizes gesturally toward its audience in terms of an
attitude, orientation, or philosophical consideration. Specifically, perpetual
motion and its relation to the modern moment is considered in detail in a
reflection upon three cinematic moments: the revolving door sequence at the
beginning of F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh; the “nonsense” dance that
concludes Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times; and the sister’s entry into the
haunted house in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Bio:
Murray Pomerance is Professor in the Department of Sociology at Ryerson
University. Author of The Horse Who Drank the Sky: Film Experience Beyond
Narrative and Theory (Rutgers 2008), Johnny Depp Starts Here (Rutgers
2005), An Eye for Hitchcock (Rutgers 2004), Savage Time (Oberon 2005), and
Magia D'Amore (Sun and Moon, 1999), he has edited or co-edited numerous
volumes, including A Family Affair: Cinema Calls Home (Wallflower, 2008), City
That Never Sleeps: New York and the Filmic Imagination (Rutgers 2007),
Cinema and Modernity (Rutgers 2006), From Hobbits to Hollywood: Essays on
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings (Rodopi 2006), American Cinema of the
1950s: Themes and Variations (Rutgers 2005), Where the Boys Are: Cinemas
of Masculinity and Youth (Wayne State 2005), BAD: Infamy, Darkness, Evil,
and Slime on Screen (State University of New York Press 2004), and Enfant
Terrible! Jerry Lewis in American Film (New York University Press 2002). He is
at work on a book about the colour films of Michelangelo Antonioni. He is
editor of the Horizons of Cinema series at State University of New York Press
and, with Lester D. Friedman and Adrienne L. McLean respectively, co-editor
of both the Screen Decades and Star Decades series at Rutgers University
Press.
TALK
24 February 2009
5:15 pm. Centre for Film Studies
Lecture Theatre, Ground floor, Arts Building, University of St. Andrews
J Ron Inglis, Director, Regional Screen Scotland
Will pixels save the soul of cinema as we once knew it?
The practice of cinema as a public art form has evolved ever since its birth
over a century ago. However over the past 20 years social, technological and
commercial developments have radically changed cinema going. Studio films
are released in a broadcast-style of distribution. The number of films released
theatrically has risen dramatically. Audiences are increasingly fragmented.
Digital technologies allow films to be copied – and even remade – without any
payment to the creators.
Within this challenging environment there are audiences in both rural and
urban settings who are asking for a different kind of cinema experience. Public
policy frequently supports these complementary or alternative cinema worlds,
from film festivals to arts centres to rural touring cinemas. But can they really
thrive in the face of fragmented, private viewing of films and official
unwillingness to treat cinema as ‘culture’ rather than as ‘commerce’?
Bio:
Ron Inglis is a cinema and arts consultant based in Peebles. A graduate of St
Andrews University, he ran the popular Union film society (600+ members) and
worked during the summer vacations with the Edinburgh International Film
Festival. In the 1970s he developed the part-time regional film theatre in
Lancaster and in 1981 joined Edinburgh’s Filmhouse as Deputy Director in
charge of cinema programming. In 1988 he changed direction and worked as a
computer trainer but after gaining an MBA in Edinburgh, he returned to cinema
and the arts as an independent consultant.
His work covers options appraisals, feasibility studies, capital project
developments, digital cinema implementation, strategic development,
marketing and audience development, and artform-specific audits in England,
Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. He is an assessor on funding
programmes for Scottish Screen, the UK Film Council, and the Arts Council of
Ireland.
Since October 2008, Ron has been working as Director of the new
development agency Regional Screen Scotland which has responsibility for the
operation of the Screen Machine mobile cinema in north Scotland, as well as
the development of sustainable cinema activities throughout Scotland outwith
the four major cities.
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