News

I was very pleased to be a speaker at a conference organised in honour of Richard Dyer at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne.

The three days of the conference covered all of the areas that Richard has worked on. My own contribution focused on songs in the cinema: ‘De l?utopie en-chant?e ? la chanson-cristal dans Call Me by Your Name’.

At the end of the conference Richard was made Doctor Honoris Causa of the university, and gave an oration that was superbly illustrated with clips and screen captures.

 

I gave a talk (in French) on Truffaut’s?Les 400 coups to a group of sixth-formers studying French at Guildford High School on 28 November 2018. I talked about the context of the New Wave, the structure of the film. We then worked on a sequence from the film so as to practise the use of film language and how to interpret the main themes of the film as treated on the sequence.

 

I gave a talk (in French) to a group of new teachers of French for the Princes Teaching Institute at the Pimlico Academy on 10 November 2018. This is the third year that I have given such a talk. This year it was on how to teach the 2011 French film?Intouchables.

 

 

I was invited on the?Distinguished Visitor Programme at the University of Queensland during August and September 2018. While there I gave a number of talks: an undergraduate lecture on the film Karmen Ge?; a?postgraduate masterclass entitled ?From the musical moment to?the crystal-song in some recent Hollywood films?; a public lecture on ?(Re)viewing French cinema? (the featured image for this news item), and a workshop for the ‘Studies in Culture’ research cluster to foster a collaborative approach to?research culture across the various language groups of the School.

I then went to Melbourne to give a talk on ‘The crystal-song in contemporary French cinema? to the?Melbourne Screen Studies group, and on to the University of Adelaide where the Department of French was celebrating their hundredth anniversary. I gave a public Lecture on ?(Re)viewing French cinema? and an English & Creative Writing seminar entitled ?From the musical moment to the crystal-song in some recent Hollywood films?.

Nadine was also working, but we managed to find the time to visit Uluru.

I gave a a talk on European cinema to a large audience of schoolchildren and the general? public as part of the?Guildford Twinning Association‘s lecture series on 3 October 2018. After giving a broad context for the production and distribution of European films I focused on two films in particular which are both on the A-Level syllabus: the French film?Intouchables (2011) and the German film?Das Leben der Anderen?(2006). The GTA is currently twinned with Freiburg, but is hoping soon to be twinned with Versailles.

On 26-27 April 2018 I gave a paper entitled??Eroica-cin?ma: Un grand amour de Beethoven (1936) et Louise (1938) d?Abel Gance? at the conference ?Le cin?ma au nom de l’art? held at the Universit? Lyon 2 ? Lumi?re.

On 12-13 April Marie Cadalanu and I gave a paper at the annual conference of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies, which took place at the University of Kent. The paper was entitled??La Crise est finie (Robert Siodmak, 1934): American, French and German styles in the coming of sound?.

 

On 9 March 2018 I gave a paper on the crystal-song in Salzburg at the conference ?When the Music Takes Over: Musical Numbers in Film and Television?. My paper was entitled ?From the musical moment to the crystal-song: La La Land (2016)?, and was one of four papers in the panel I organized with three French/Belgian colleagues (Martin Barnier, Marie Cadalanu, Dominique Nasta): ?The musical moment as pivot rather than pause?.

UPDATE: I am co-editing the conference collection with Austrian colleagues Claus Tieber and Anna Windisch, which will be published by Palgrave Macmillan. Claus and Anna ran a large research project on The Austrian Music Film 1912-1933. They are the co-editors of The Sounds of Silent Films: New Perspectives on History, Theory and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

I was invited to contribute to the conference? ?Danielle Darrieux, la travers?e d?un si?cle? at the Universit? Bordeaux-Montaigne (3-5 May). I gave a paper on ?Mayerling et le regard de Danielle Darrieux?.

UPDATE: The paper will be published in?Danielle Darrieux: la travers?e d?un si?cle, edited by Gwena?lle Le Gras and Genevi?ve Sellier (Paris: Nouveau Monde).

 

In 2015-2016 I co-supervised Miao Bei a PhD student from the Beijing Film Academy, where I had been Visiting Professor in 2013-2014. She went on to receive her PhD, on transitional spaces in film. It was judged to be the best one of her year. Part of it was published in the?Journal of the Beijing Film Academy, pictured above.?

Miao is currently working as?a production executive on TV series The City of Chaos. She is also? preparing her own TV programme about the friendship between three girls, and working on a film about Internet alienation.