Department of Film Studies

Fri 23rd March 2007 to Wed 28th March 2007

Representation and Effect:The Roma in Politics, Art and the Academy

The third interdisciplinary workshop in the British Academy Series on The European Roma: Theorising Marginality, Resistance and Integration will take place in St Andrews, from the 23rd to the 25th of March, 2007. The workshop consists of paper presentations, round-tables and film screenings. The film screenings are open to the public.

Tue 20th March 2007

Visiting Filmmaker and screening: Denis Chouinard and 'Clandestins'

Canadian filmmaker Denis Chouinard will visit to teach a master class and screen his first feature film (made with Nicolas Wadimoff), Clandestins (1997). The class will be held from 12:00-13:30 at 99 North Street. The screening will take place later that evening at 18:15 at the New Picture House Cinema at 117 North Street.

Tue 13th March 2007 17:15 to 19:15

CFS Talk by Prof Gill Plain: Acting English or How John Mills Won the Second World War

This paper takes its cue from John Thompson’s assertion that ‘a good deal of the meaning of the fiction film is borne by its actors and their performances’ (1978). By exploring the relationship between the body of the actor, the concept of the nation and the changing prescriptions of masculinity that characterised the interwar and war years, I aim to illustrate how John Mills came to be regarded as a national monument. Mills was not the only actor to assume a ‘national’ dimension during the Second World War, but I will argue that his body, performance style and deployment by a range of directors combined to make him an unusually resonant symbol of national unity. Mills’ status as an ‘English Everyman’ raises significant questions about class and masculinity in the 1930s and 1940s, and his success can also be seen as a provisional and unstable fantasy of national cohesion.