The Charles Chaplin Conference

The British Film Institute, in association with the University of
Southampton and the London College of Communication, announces a major
conference on the work and worldwide cultural influence of Charles Chaplin.
This will coincide with the establishment of the bfi's Charles Chaplin
Research Programme, which is designed to foster innovative research in
relation to Chaplin and his contemporaries. The emphasis will be on
dialogue and the bringing together of archivists, researchers and scholars
from a range of disciplines for screenings, the presentation of papers and
symposia to reassess Chaplin's British music hall roots and his impact and
influence on film, the arts and modern culture.

The conference will be held at the London College of Communication, Elephant
& Castle in the heart of Chaplin's London.

Chaplin's image has been an enduring symbol for the twentieth century, it is
an image that simultaneously stands for the celebration and the condemnation
of the modern world. Chaplin's life, art and influence offer a
thought-provoking site of convergence for film history, theatre history,
literary modernism, and the social and cultural history of everyday life in
the twentieth century. Through screenings of newly restored material,
events, talks and discussion the conference will offer a number of
perspectives on Chaplin's work.

Events and Highlights:
Keynote speakers: Tom Gunning, Jennifer Bean, David Trotter, Yuri Tsivian,
Jacky Bratton and David Robinson.

Screening programme of the latest Chaplin Keystone restorations produced by
the bfi National Film and Television Archive, Cineteca di Bologna and
Lobster Films. The archivists will be present to explain the intricacies of
this ambitious restoration project.

Opening night reception will be at Wiltons Music Hall the oldest surviving
music hall in England, built in 1858 in the East End of London. Scenes for
Lord Attenborough's 1986 film, Chaplin were shot here. It was in the finals
of the BBC series Restoration and the trust continues to raise funds for the
preservation of this unique and atmospheric building.

Free Open air screening of Shoulder Arms and Chaplin related rarities in the
grounds of the Imperial War Museum, (where Chaplin's mother was confined
when it was still the infamous Bedlam asylum).

For Full details and Registration Form go to:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/chaplin/conference/

Dr. Michael Hammond
English
School of Humanities
University of Southampton
Southampton
SO17 4BF
Tel:+44 (0)2380 596708


Quoting [log in to unmask]:

> Chris Marker film screenings and talk
>
>
>
> Wednesday 29 June 2005, Cine-Lumiere, London
>
>
>
> 6.30-7.00pm: Film -- "Les Statues Meurent Aussi" ("Even Statues Die"), by
> Chris Marker and Alain Resnais (1950-1953)
>
>
>
> Created in 1953, this 22-minute audio-visual essay which deconstructs the
> effect of colonisation on African art, was banned for more than a decade
> by French censors as an attack on French colonialism and is a deeply felt
> study of African art and the decline it underwent as a result of its
> contact with Western civilization. Marker's characteristically witty and
> thoughtful commentary is combined with images of a stark formal beauty in
> this passionate outcry against the fate of an art that was once integral
> to communal life but became debased as it fell victim to the demands of
> another culture.
>
>
>
> NB: An actor seated onstage will read the commentary translated in
> English live with the projection
>
>
>
>
>
> 7.00-8.00pm: Talk with Professor Sophie Bessis
>
>
>
> Sophie Bessis is a historian and journalist, and a Professor at the
> University of Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I). In her book "Western
> Supremacy, the Triumph of an Idea?" (Zed Books, 2003), Bessis tells the
> story of the West's relationship with the world it came to dominate --
> from the conquest of the Americas, through the slave trade and the
> Scramble for Africa, the White Man's burden, Manifest Destiny and the
> growth of 'scientific' racism, to decolonisation, the ideology of
> development and structural adjustment. Western Supremacy is the history
> of colonial and developmentalist thought. Starting with the Enlightenment
> idea of universality it traces how this facilitated a notion of the West
> rooted in a Hellenic inheritance systematically shorn of Egyptian or Arab
> influences. Though the hierarchy of races has now given way to the
> hierarchy of development, Bessis argues that 'developmentalism' is the
> new incarnation of the West's paradoxical aspiration to lead the world
> into universalism whilst maintaining its own supremacy. She will be in
> conversation with Profesor E.A. Brett, Professor of Development Studies
> at the London School of Economics.
>
>
>
>
>
> 8.00pm: Film - "Sans Soleil" ("Sunless"), by Chris Marker (1983)
>
>
>
> On the surface, this remarkable filmed essay by the legendary Chris
> Marker--the French filmmaking pioneer whose extraordinary works about the
> properties of memory (including the 1962 La Jetée) comprise a chapter of
> French New Wave history--appears to be a kind of travelogue. Using
> narration, documentary footage, photographs, and various sorts of mental
> meanderings, Marker constructs a cinematic parallel to the inherent
> adventures in journeying through different parts of the world. With
> great, self-effacing wit, Marker invokes that sense of broadened wisdom
> and vision that accompanies travel, as well as the delicate problem of
> trying to communicate the scale of that wisdom and vision to others. The
> delightful movie takes us to many fascinating sights in Tokyo, but what
> really develops is a dialogue with the audience about the nature of a
> filmmaker's pact with them, as well as the insecurity of trying to live
> up to that promise. A wonderful, clear-eyed experience, one that makes
> you wonder why Marker continues to be tagged with the obfuscating tag of
> "experimentalist." --Tom Keogh
>
>
>
>
>
> Where: Ciné Lumière (at the Institut Français)
>
> 17 Queensberry Place
>
> London SW7 2DT
>
>
>
> For further information, please contact: Box Office: 0207 073 1350
>
> www.institut-francais.org.uk
>
>
>
> Tickets:
>
> Les Statues Meurent Aussi + Talk : £5 / £3 conc.
>
> Sans Soleil : £7 / £5 conc.
>
> Price for the whole evening : £9 / £7 conc.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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