Tag: Department of Film and Television

Virginia Woolf Encounters Naser al-Din Shah in London

Posted on by George Thomas

By Sajad Sotoudeh, PhD Film and Television candidate, School of Arts

In the final entry to our series spotlighting PGR summer internship projects, PhD Film and Television candidate Sajad Sotoudeh explains his collaboration with Dr Nariman Massoumi on a film essay that explored the perceptual experience of the flâneur in the metropolis. Flânerie refers to wandering through the modern city, a concept that has intrigued many thinkers, including Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire and Guy Debord.

My collaborative project with Dr Nariman Massoumi centred on two historical figures: Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), a Western writer, and Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (1831-1896), the king of Iran, focusing on their flânerie in London in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Virginia Woolf was an English writer who is considered one of the influential figures of modern literature. She wrote about the experience of the figure of flâneur in the modern city. Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, the monarch of Iran for fifty years, was also a photographer and writer interested in traveling to Europe and seeing the manifestations of Western modernity.

We were interested in drawing on and entangling their unique mobilised gaze of the city into a dialogue or conflict to initiate new interpretations of urban modernity, postcolonialism, and gendered perceptual experience. Our project aims to create a visual impression of their contrasting perspectives as they walk London in parallel, across time and space. Through the meeting of these two historical figures on film, a layered encounter across temporal, gendered, and cross-cultural lines is intended. Using formal experimentation, the film will seek to examine an alternative historiography based on a non-linear approach to uncover neglected moments in the history of everyday life.

In the initial phase, Dr Massoumi and I examined various texts regarding Virginia Woolf and Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, flânerie, perception, gender, and sexuality in the modern city. We shared our findings in numerous meetings, which helped us better understand each other’s perspectives.

Dr Massoumi’s expertise in the cultural conflicts and influences between Iran and Britain and post-colonial studies significantly contributed to solidifying my ideas. Furthermore, his experience in filmmaking, particularly his focus on archival practice research about the history of the British-Iranian confrontation, provided me with invaluable insights into translating theoretical ideas into visual concepts in filmmaking. Acquiring this skill was a significant milestone, as it enabled me to present my ideas in a medium (cinema) that reaches a wider audience. This not only expanded the impact of my work but also provided me with practical experience in the burgeoning field of practice-as-research in academia.

Naser al-Din Shah Qajar in a carriage during one of his trips to Europe.

Since this project is closely related to my dissertation topic on the history of flânerie in Iranian cinema and culture, it has enabled me to study and explore texts associated with the concept of flânerie in greater detail. This PGR Internship has also allowed me to go through my first filmmaking experience in the UK with Dr Massoumi’s guidance, face its challenges, and better understand how films are produced in the UK. These achievements will help me to continue my career path in the field of research as a practice in the future, which can provide me with better job opportunities.

Currently we hope to complete the essay film by the summer of 2025 and submit it to a wide range of international conferences and film festivals.

Sajad Sotoudeh is a PhD Film and Television candidate with research interests in Iranian cinema, haptic perception, gender and sexuality in cinema, flânerie, and urban modernity. To find out more about the project with Dr Nariman Massoumi, contact af23066@bristol.ac.uk. To read more PGR summer internship projects, visit ArtsMatter.

Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger

Posted on by George Thomas

By Professor Sarah Street, Professor of Film and Foundation Chair of Drama, School of Arts

From October to December 2023, the British Film Institute (BFI) curated a special UK-wide season of screenings and events to celebrate the work of visionary British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. In a partnership spanning thirty-three years and twenty-four films, Powell and Pressburger transformed cinema with their bold storytelling and vivid cinematography, most notably in The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. As an academic specialist on British cinema history, Professor Sarah Street participated in several of the events and here tells us about her contributions.

To mark the opening of the Cinema Unbound season, the BFI published The Cinema of Powell and Pressburger, a superbly illustrated book co-edited by Nathalie Morris and Claire Smith. This includes a chapter by Sarah Street on the filmmakers’ extraordinary use of Technicolor which draws on research arising from several major projects on colour films led by Sarah Street and funded by the AHRC and Leverhulme Trust. It was also informed by her in-depth study of Black Narcissus which features with a link to a chapter in the BFI/Bloomsbury’s Screen Studies online publication on Powell and Pressburger. The Cinema of Powell and Pressburger includes many sumptuous images showcasing an extraordinary range of original set and costume designs, photographs and objects, many of which are in the BFI’s own archives. The book was launched at the BFI Southbank in conjunction with the opening of a major exhibition on The Red Shoes. A special cake was made to mark the occasion.

As part of the Powell and Pressburger season the BFI held several discussions on fascinating dimensions of their work. Sarah Street contributed to ‘Centre Stage: The leading women of Powell and Pressburger’, appearing alongside Professor Lucy Bolton (Queen Mary, University of London), critic, writer and historian Pamela Hutchinson and writer Lillian Crawford. The second panel discussion was ‘Queering Powell and Pressburger’, with Dr Andrew Moor (Manchester Metropolitan University), Emma Smart, Director of Collections, Learning and Engagement at the BFI, and Zorian Clayton, Curator of Prints at the V&A and BFI Flare programmer. Each panelist chose extracts from a selection of Powell and Pressburger’s films which illustrated many key themes. These included queer perspectives on the films, offering fresh understandings of iconic performances by well-known actors such as Anton Walbrook and Ruth Byron, and British character actors such as Charles Hawtrey and Judith Furse.

Professor Sarah Street (third from left) participates in a panel discussion on the theme of ‘British Blonde’

Sarah Street is currently collaborating with Claire Smith, Senior Curator of Special Collections at the BFI and Professor Melanie Bell, University of Leeds on a three-year research project, ‘Film Costumes in Action’, funded by the AHRC. She also recently contributed to a panel discussion held at the V&A in connection with a series of lectures by art historian Professor Lynda Nead, Birkbeck, University of London, funded by the Paul Mellon Centre. These were on the theme of ‘British Blonde’, focusing on four celebrated, notorious blonde women: Diana Dors, Ruth Ellis, Barbara Windsor and Pauline Boty. Filmmakers Catherine Grant and John Wyver made four video essays in response to the lectures which were discussed in the last session of the series by Sarah Street and Professor Melanie Williams, University of East Anglia.

Professor Sarah Street is Professor of Film and Foundation Chair of Drama in the Department of Film and Television. A member of our Screen Research Group, Sarah has published widely on British cinema history and the importance of preserving colour film in the archives. To find out more about Sarah’s research, including her current AHRC investigation into ‘Film Costumes in Action’, please email sarah.street@bristol.ac.uk.