Dear all,
Please join us next Wednesday for the forthcoming event in the Film Studies Speaker Series at the University of St. Andrews. Apologies for cross-listing.
Best,
Dr. Paul Flaig
Lecturer in Film Studies
Re-positioning a pioneer: Robert Paul in the light of new film history
Professor Ian Christie (Birkbeck College)
Wednesday 3rd April 2019
3:00 PM
Film Studies Boardroom
Robert Paul was virtually written out of early British film history by the pioneer of the field, Rachael Low, in 1948. It's been a slow and erratic route back to acknowledging him as the effective founder of
British Cinema, which is how he was regarded by his contemporaries. But how does he stand in relation to more recent concerns about 'genius' and gender, or business history vs film history? Finalising a forthcoming book—Robert
Paul and the Origins of British Cinema (2019)—I began nearly twenty years ago has given me much to ponder about the changing status of film and media history. Blog: https://paulsanimatographworks.wordpress.com/
Ian Christie is a film historian, curator, broadcaster and consultant, and has been Anniversary Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck College, University of London, since 1999. He has written and
edited books on early film, Powell and Pressburger, Russian cinema, Scorsese and Gilliam and worked on exhibitions ranging from Film as Film (Hayward,1979), Eisenstein: His Life and Art (MoMA Oxford, 1988) and Twilight of the Tsars (Hayward, 1991) to Spellbound:
Art and Film (Hayward, 1996) and Modernism: Designing a New World (V&A, 2006). He has contributed regularly to radio and television programmes on cinema and is currently vice-president of Europa Cinemas and member of its Experts Committee and was elected a
fellow of the British Academy in 1994 and in 2005-06 was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge University.