Skip to main content

Screening Programme: Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen

Cooper Gallery, Dundee, September 29th-October 7th

In December 2016, Laura Mulvey gave a keynote address at the Cooper Gallery as part of the 12hr Action Group symposium. This was the culmination to Of Other Spaces: Where Does Gesture Become Event?, the gallery's two chapter sprawl through feminist art since the 1970s. This September, the veteran feminist film theorist, who first introduced the notion of the male gaze to cinematic critique, returns to Dundee with her partner in art and life, Peter Wollen, for a series of screenings of some of the key films they made together.

Urgency and Possibility: Counter Cinema in the 70s and 80s will show five films, dating from Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons, made in 1974, through to 1982's Crystal Amazons. Like them, 1977's Riddles of the Sphinx is feature length, while the shorter Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti (1981) will also be screened. The season will open with a screening of the pair's 1980 film, AMY!, preceded by a talk by Mulvey. Only the pair's final outing, The Bad Sister, (1982) will not be seen in a canon that taps into patriarchal myths, male fantasy and sub Godardian disruptions of narrative. With a new wave of radical thought rising up as a counterblast to reactionary global forces, Mulvey and Wollen's back-catalogue look like key touchstones for possible futures yet to be written.

The List, September 2017

ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...

Billy Elliot The Musical

Edinburgh Playhouse Five stars A big National Coal Board sign looms large at the opening of Lee Hall and Elton John's decade-old musical stage version of Hall and director Stephen Daldry's hit turn of the century film. In a tale of one little boy's liberation as a dancer against the backdrop of the 1980s miners strike, however, the Durham Miners banner and the 'Save Our Community' sash held aloft matter more. It is this call to arms that forms the heart of Daldry's production, as Billy becomes a potty-mouthed beacon of hope in a situation where picket line, thin blue line and chorus line rub uneasily up against each other. Given such a context, there is bound to be some pretty grown-up stuff going on here, be it the institutionalised homophobia in Billy's village, the class war going on within it, or Billy's grieving for his dead mother that drives his every move. And, as so magnificently choreographed by Peter Darling, what moves they are. Watch...