*CFP* "CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE FILMS OF ADAM CURTIS", ONLINE CONFERENCE

Critical Perspectives on the Films of Adam Curtis

Online Conference

Wednesday 8th September 2021

 

Critical Perspectives on the Films of Adam Curtis is a one-day, interdisciplinary conference hosted in collaboration with the University of Nottingham’s Institute for Screen Industries Research which critically examines the films of the documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis. The keynote speaker for the conference is Professor Brian Winston. Professor Winston is the Chair of the Lincoln School of Film and Media, founding chair of the British Association of Film, Television and Media Studies and has served as a governor of the British Film Institute. He has published over 17 books as well as receiving a US prime-time Emmy for documentary script writing and a Special Jury prize from the British University Council for Film and Video. To register for the conference please visit our Eventbrite page.

*CFP* "AFTER NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR: BRITISH DYSTOPIAS, FROM 1984 TO THE PRESENT DAY", SPECIAL ISSUE, SILLAGES CRITIQUES JOURNAL

1984 is the date in the future when the action in Orwell’s premonitory novel was supposed to take place. When people in the real world of 1984 came to realise that history had caught up with that originally fictional date, worried interrogations started to emerge as to whether Orwell’s fiction had actually come true. Whether we now lived in the dystopian world that the novel had foreseen, i.e. in the world of Big Brother – a world of omnipresent surveillance screens, greedily confiscated power structures, constant linguistic revisionary tactics, and ruthlessly utilitarian biopolitics. Orwell’s striking modernity was apparent to everyone, ordinary citizens and journalists, sophisticated literary critics and astute political thinkers, and of course shrewd artists of all sorts, including film directors and novelists. We did indeed live in ‘Dismaland’, as Banksy’s 2015 anti-amusement art installation (featuring fifty other dystopian artists) would much later make clear.

It was evident that the dystopian streak tapped by a discouraged, dying novelist in the dreary post-WWII period had not been exhausted. Far from it. As a matter of fact, the genre seems to have been continuously gaining momentum, and it will come as no surprise to anyone that today’s younger generations enjoy watching series or reading novels that deal with dystopic political or post-apocalyptic situations. Bernardine Evaristo’s Blonde Roots (2009), Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror (2011-), Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From (2017), or Sophie Mackintosh’s The Water Cure (2019), constitute the most obvious body of recent evidence of a revival. 

*CFP* "RESISTING JAMES BOND: POWER, PRIVILEGE, AND SOCIAL (IN)JUSTICE IN THE DANIEL CRAIG ERA", CHAPTER BOOK

When it was released in 2006, Casino Royale notably shifted the development and design of the James Bond films. The film not only introduces Daniel Craig in the title role but also reboots the iconic brand by retelling Bond’s origin story from the moment he attains his “00” license to kill. Across the orphan origin trilogy – Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace (2008), and Skyfall (2012) – the Bond formula is deconstructed, with defining elements either reworked or gradually reintroduced, effectively updating the films to compete in both narrative and visual terms against Hollywood blockbusters in the global film market. The sequels Spectre (2016) and No Time To Die (2020) continue to flesh out the violent personal history of Bond as he fights to ensure the physical safety and resource security of Britain and its allies.

While popular with critics and fans, the Craig era films relay troublesome messages about power, privilege, and issues of social, racial, and environmental justice. Depictions of sexism and misogyny are particularly pronounced as Bond’s character develops at the expense of women who are threatened, physically/sexually abused, professionally maligned, and/or killed. Moreover, the intersection of gender with race and age points toward multiple and coexisting experiences of violence and oppression. 

*CFP* “HUGH GRANT”, SPECIAL ISSUE, CELEBRITY STUDIES JOURNAL

Since his breakthrough role in Maurice (J. Ivory, 1987) and his rise to fame with 4 Weddings and a Funeral (M. Newell, 1994), Hugh Grant has been one of the most popular British actors in the public imaginary.

His continued collaboration with Richard Curtis in the 1990s and early 2000s, in films such as Notting Hill (R. Michell, 1999) and Bridget Jones’s Diary (S. Maguire, 2001), cemented his fame internationally, inextricably associated with the romcom genre.

Yet, his career and public persona have undergone a shift in the 2010s. During a period of self-imposed semi-hiatus from acting, in which the tour de force playing six different characters in Cloud Atlas (The Wachowskis and T. Twyker, 2012) represents a notable exception, Grant has devoted himself to campaigning for the protection of privacy. Starting with his article in The New Statesman (2011) exposing the phone hacking practices at News of the World and continuing with his engagement through “Hacked Off” and Twitter, where he has further vocally opposed Brexit, Grant has become more closely associated with political activism. At the same time, his image has been reshaped through fatherhood, often depicted as the reason behind his career change in the press.