I studied for my MA in History of Film & Visual Media at Birkbeck College, University of London, between 2002/3 and 2004/5. Birkbeck is unusual in that it caters mostly to part-time adult students, with evening lectures and tutorials. It was an excellent course, taught by Ian Christie, Laura Mulvey, Mike Allen and Amy Sargeant. I worked hard, and got a Distinction. This site includes my best pieces of work, both from the second year. First is an essay about the performance of femininity in the melodramas of Douglas Sirk, and the sigificance of drag and female impersonation in films and performances which parody or pay homage to Sirk, from Andy Warhol and Jack Smith through to the Kuchar Brothers and John Waters to Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes. Second, a historiographic dissertation on film exhibition in the UK during the early sound period of the late 1920s, concentrating on a cheap intermediate technology which briefly flourished as an alternative to expensive synchronised sound equipment installation - the electrical reproducer - essentially a dual deck electrically amplified record player similar to a modern DJ console. I’m proud of these works, and since they both explore new areas, with little published material available, online or elsewhere, I’ve made them available here. If you’ve found them through an esoteric Google, congratulations. Simon Murphy, February 2006 |
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