To celebrate the opening of the 17th Encounters Bristol International Film Festival, the Festival of Ideas presented Big Ideas, Big Screen with Francine Stock, presenter of BBC Radio Four's The Film Programme. Also, the event marked the release of Francine’s book In Glorious Technicolour: a century of film and how it has shaped us, which explores the nature of our relationship with film.

From the first screenings of the Lumiere Brothers' short films, to the perception-altering 3-D Avatar, cinema has shaped the popular imagination in ways too numerous to mention.

In this talk, which was accompanied by a selection of clips, Francine and Festival of Ideas Director Andrew Kelly discussed the birth of celebrity in the twenties, the influence of Freud and the unconscious in film noir, sci-fi and body-snatching horror in the fifties, the social change of the sixties, the seventies' nightmares and the high concept blockbusters.

Francine Stock is a broadcaster and novelist who has presented Newsnight, The Money Programme, and The Antiques Show. She has written three books, including two works of fiction (A Foreign Country, and Man-Made Fibre) and the guide to cinema, In Glorious Technicolour: a century of film and how it has shaped us, that is the subject of this talk.

This event was presented by Festival of Ideas and Encounters Bristol International Film Festival.

Related Links:
Bristol Festival of Ideas

 

Posted on Tue 15 Nov 2011.

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