Film Studies For Free today presents an entry about Bill Douglas, one of the most interesting Scottish filmmakers ever, and a highly likely influence on anyone interesting working in that field today -- in FSFF's undoubtedly Sassenach view, that would include, inter alia, fine film folk like Lynne Ramsay, Peter Mullan, David MacKenzie, and Gillies MacKinnon (plus, perhaps, the otherwise English Andrea Arnold and Shane Meadows).
Douglas was known especially for his amazing Trilogy (My Childhood (1972), My Ain Folk (1973), and My Way Home (1978)), as well as for the wonderful 1987 film Comrades. But his lifelong collection of cinema artifacts and memorabilia also went on to form the basis of one of the most significant cinema archives in the world, named after him, at the University of Exeter. The Bill Douglas Centre also looks after one of the most important online and openly accessible cinematic archives, too: Everyone's Virtual Exhibition (EVE). If you are so inclined, you may very much like to interact with the BDC at Facebook.
The particular occasion for this entry is an upcoming symposium on Douglas's work at the University of Exeter taking place this week on Friday September 23. There are papers from eminent scholars Karen Lury, Andrew Noble, Brian Hoyle, Jonny Murray and Paul Newland and from filmmaker Sean Martin and the BDC's principal donor, Peter Jewell, on all aspects of Douglas's work; the Trilogy, Comrades, his unmade scripts, and his collection. There will also be the first ever screening of Charlie Chaplin Lived Here, Bill and Peter's 8mm film made in 1966. The event is free but please register in advance by email. The full programme of papers is available here.
FSFF has assembled some great, freely accessible resources below, including links to work on Scottish cinema and also on film archiving. The goodies include a highly informative and clip-filled 2006 documentary "Intent on Getting the Image" about Bill Douglas's life and career, edited by Stuart Eade and produced and directed by Andy Kimpton-Nye.
At the very foot of the post is a video about the incredibly valuable work of the Bill Douglas Centre. FSFF salutes you!
On Bill Douglas's Films, and related Scottish cinema:
- Bill Douglas entry at BFI Screenonline
- Bill Douglas: A Brief Biography', Bill Douglas Centre website
- Michael Atkinson, 'Mr. Vengeance: Scottish filmmaker Bill Douglas's autobiographical trilogy', Moving Image Source, September 22, 2008
- Neil Blain, 'The Scottish Dimension in Film and Television', Scottish Life and Society: Transport and Communications, A Compendium of Scottish Ethnology, Volume 8, pp. 768 - 792
- Simon Brown, '“Anywhere but Scotland?” Transnationalism and New Scottish Cinema', International Journal of Scottish Theatre and Screen, 2011
- Yannick Deplaedt, 'Bill Douglas, ou la mémoire au cinéma' [in French], Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, journal of School of Foreign Languages, 2010 (39), 91-117, 2010-08
- Ian Goode, 'Different Trajectories: Europe and Scotland in Recent Scottish Cinema', PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, July 2007
- Rhys Graham, 'The Glimpse Given Life: An Elegy for Bill Douglas'Senses of Cinema, Issue 10, 2000
- Lynne A. Hibberd, Creative industries policy and practice. a study of BBC Scotland and Scottish Screen, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009
- Michael McCracken, 'Lowest of the Low: Scenes of Shame and Self-Depreciation in Contemporary Scottish Cinema', MA Thesis, University of North Texas, May 2008
- Christopher Meir, Underwriting national sovereignty?: policy, the market and Scottish cinema, 1982- present, PhD Thesis, University of Warwick, 2007
- Catherine M. Munroe, From Highlander to Hard Man: Representations of Scottish Masculinity in 1990s Cinema, Masters Thesis, York University, Ontario, 2000
- Sarah Neely, Adapting to change in contemporary Irish and Scottish culture: fiction to film. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2003
- Beatriz Oria Gómez, 'Imagining Scotland: Local Hero (1983) and Kailyardism', Bells: Barcelona English language and literature studies; Vol.: 17, 2008
- Takato Seino, Realism and Representations of the Working Class in Contemporary British Cinema, MPhil Thesis, DeMontfort University, 2010
- Linda Wood, British Films (London: BFI, 1983)
On Archive and Online Repository Matters, etc.:
- Luisa Calè and Patrizia Di Bello, 'Introduction: Verbal and Visual Interactions in Nineteenth-Century Print Culture', 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 5 (2007)
- Fergus Cooke, 'Questions of Authorship and Audience: A Study of Artefacts Related to the Film Rebecca (1940)', Bill Douglas Centre, [date unknown]
- Jessica Gardner, Michelle Allen, Dominic Prosser, and Helen Hanson, 'E-learning at the University of Exeter Library', SCONUL FOCUS, 2005 (RTF)
- Catherine Owen, Tony Pearson, Stephen Arnold, 'Meeting the Challenge of Film Research in the Electronic Age', D-Lib Magazine, Volume 6 Number 3, March 2000
- Duncan Petrie, 'The Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture: A Report for Screen', 1999
- John Plunkett, 'DIGITISATION AND MATERIALITY FORUM From Optical to Digital (and back again)', 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 6 (2008)
- Lisa Stead, Audiences from the Film Archive: Women's Writing and Silent Cinema', Scope, Issue 17, June 2010
Christine Sprengler, 'Memory and Exile in the Bill Douglas Trilogy' in Cultures of exile: images of displacement By Wendy Ellen Everett, Peter Wagstaff (Oxford: Bergahn Books, 2004)
Graham Smith, 'The Travelling Lanternist and the Uncommercial Traveller; An Experiment in Correspondences', in Literature and the visual media by David Seed (London: DS Brewer, 2005)
Below, in eight short parts, "Intent on Getting the Image",
a documentary about the life and work of Bill Douglas
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