Spencer Bell, Nobody Knows My Name

Spencer Bell, Nobody Knows My Name is an audiovisual essay about the racist depiction of an African American actor, Spencer Bell, in the first feature length film of The Wizard of Oz (Larry Semon, 1925). The audiovisual essay showcases Bell’s performance, by only selecting and using sequences that he is in. I decided to not only reverse the order of the sequences but also to reverse the footage within the clips themselves. Through reversing the footage from the film, we see Bell’s representation unfold, reanimating his performance. By focussing solely on Bell, the audiovisual essay draws attention to him as an actor and celebrates his talent whilst also illustrating the constraints in which he was working. It does so to ask questions about representation in cinema and more critically to unpick the racist imagery evident onscreen. The audiovisual essay argues that it is important to watch such depictions in order to challenge them, and to confront racist imagery. In focussing in on Bell, it is hoped it will prompt audiences to seek out his work and watch his performances in full and, in turn, understand the institutional racism he was working under. 

Book Review: James Buhler and Hannah Lewis (eds), Voicing the Cinema: Film Music and the Integrated Soundtrack (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2020)

James Buhler and Hannah Lewis (eds), Voicing the Cinema: Film Music and the Integrated Soundtrack (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2020), pp. 309, ISBN: 9780252043000 (pb), $30; ISBN: 9780252051869 $19.95 (ebook ePub).

Book Review: Martin Barker, Clarissa Smith and Feona Attwood, Watching Game of Thrones: How Audiences Engage with Dark Television (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021)

Martin Barker, Clarissa Smith and Feona Attwood, Watching Game of Thrones: How Audiences Engage with Dark Television (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), pp. vii – 200, ISBN: 9781526152176 (hb), £80.00.

Rhetoric of Belonging and Transnational Appropriation in the Development and Marketing of the Bulgarian Popular Feature Love.net

This article focuses on issues of representation and belonging, in an attempt to uncover how popular cinema in Bulgaria caters to national sensitivities while at the same time making the link with the global film industries. The Bulgarian popular feature Love.net (Ilian Djevelekov, 2011) is an example of the shift towards treating filmmaking in Bulgaria as a business as much as a cultural venture. It emerged as part of broader European trends, which put an emphasis on film development, marketing and stars, with the aim to counter Hollywood’s dominant market position. Love.net focuses on the role of the Internet as facilitating love, relations and communication in the contemporary world. On a textual level, and similarly to Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003), it explores the six degrees of separation theory, implicitly advocating for a world of interconnectedness. Contextually, Love.net created a sense of virtual belonging among the local online community, allowing them to participate in the film’s development and engage with its interactive marketing. Transnational stars provided a further point of contact and involvement. Through its mixed cast featuring home-grown and locally popular foreign actors, Love.net both channelled and challenged Hollywood, positioning European cinema as similar in glamour and attraction but different in identity.

Bristol Fashion: Reclaiming Cary Grant for Bristol – Film Heritage, Screen Tourism and Curating the Cary Comes Home Festival

This article re-examines Cary Grant’s star persona arguing that the importance of his Bristolian identity has been under-appreciated. Through a detailed discussion of attempts to promote his Bristolian roots including the biennial Cary Comes Home Festival (established 2014), the article argues that these activities have encouraged a re-evaluation of Cary Grant’s star identity, increased understanding of his importance to Bristol’s screen heritage, and helped promote film tourism to the city. The article outlines the history and development of the festival, critically reflecting on the curatorial practices that underpinned them. It is informed by three main interlinked theoretical areas: star studies; the literature on fan practices of cinematic tourism and pilgrimage, and festival studies. It analyses the ways in which expanded cinema programming provides opportunities for decentering the understanding of Grant’s persona as a Hollywood star, by exploring the festival’s programming of immersive cinematic experiences in locations that were significant to his Bristolian identity. The article also examines the impact of the festival’s role in relocating Grant within Bristol, the ways in which it has enhanced the city’s sense of its cinematic heritage – including achieving UNESCO City of Film status in October 2017 – and the ways in which Bristol has become a living archive through which and in which Cary Grant’s star persona is constructed and circulates, which has helped promote film tourism to the city today.

Blu-ray Review: Secrets & Lies [Criterion Collection, 2021] (Mike Leigh, 1996)

Secrets & Lies [Criterion Collection, 2021] (Mike Leigh, 1996), 142 minutes, spine #1070, $39.96 (blu-ray)

Mark Glancy, Cary Grant, the Making of a Hollywood Legend (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. xvii + 550, ISBN: 9780190053130, £22.99 and Scott Eyman, Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020), pp. xiv +556, ISBN: 9781501192111, £25

Mark Glancy, Cary Grant, the Making of a Hollywood Legend (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) and Scott Eyman, Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020).

Utopian Montage: exploring transnational folk cinemas online during the Covid-19 pandemic as part of the 2020 Folk Film Gathering film festival

This essay explores some of the simultaneous limitations and affordances the Covid-19 pandemic has created for emergent perspectives upon a transnational folk cinema. Merging aspects of more traditional scholarly enquiry with the research-by-practice embodied within Scotland's Folk Film Gathering film festival, we position two case studies - of Nadir Bouhmouch's Amussu (2020) and the Amber Collective's Like Father (2001) respectively - within some of the broader question underlying attempts to bring the conviviality of community-focussed filmmaking and cinema-going online during the pandemic.

Book Review: Laura Sava, Theatre Through the Camera Eye: The Poetics of an Intermedial Encounter, (Edinburgh University Press, 2019)

Laura Sava, Theatre Through the Camera Eye: The Poetics of an Intermedial Encounter, (Edinburgh University Press, 2019), pp. 256, ISBN: 9781474484282 (pb), £19.99; ISBN: 9780748697472 (hb), £80.00; ISBN: 9781474445900 (ePub), £80.00; ISBN: 9780748697489 (PDF), £80.00.

Book Review: Brian McFarlane (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of British Film, 5th edition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021)

Brian McFarlane (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of British Film, 5th edition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), pp. 968, ISBN: 978-1526159267, £133.20