Published on March 28, 2020.
This video compiles all of Celia Johnson's voiceover utterances from BRIEF ENCOUNTER. It is a work of film-studies creative critical research that entailed much "material thinking" through the procedures of digitally collecting, handling and arranging the original film's sequences. It is the third in a series of audiovisual film studies of Lean's 1945 film, and the central role in it played by Celia Johnson's character. The earlier videos in the series can be seen online here: vimeo.com/145070069; and here: vimeo.com/149791810.
The first draft of this video was screened at the BFI Event Breaking the Sound Barrier: Women Sounding Out in British and Irish Film and Television, Saturday 18 June, 2016, NFT3 10:00-17:30, organized by the Women’s Film and TV History Network-UK/Ireland, in collaboration with BFI Southbank and supported by MeCCSA Women’s Media Studies Network. womensfilmandtelevisionhistory.wordpress.com/breaking-the-sound-barrier/
A penultimate draft was shown as part of the 70th Locarno Film Festival "Film Criticism in Motion: Interfaces, Bodies, Gazes" Program, August 6 & 7th, 2017: pardo.ch/pardo/program/archive/2017/film.html?fid=979973&eid=70.
For anyone interested in these approaches, please see the following three articles which expand on the educational advantages of these procedures:
Catherine Grant, ‘Dissolves of Passion: Materially Thinking through Editing in Videographic Compilation’ in The Videographic Essay: Practice and Pedagogy, 2019, Eds. Christian Keathley, Jason Mittell and Catherine Grant. videographicessay.org/works/videographic-essay/dissolves-of-passion-1
Catherine Grant, 'Turning Up the Volume? The Emergent Focus on Film Sound, Music and Listening in Audiovisual Essays’, The Cine-Files: A Scholarly Journal of Cinema Studies (Spring 2015) 8. Special issue on Film Sound. Online at: thecine-files.com/turning-up-the-volume/.
Catherine Grant, 'Beyond tautology? Audiovisual Film Criticism', Film Criticism, Vol. 40, No.1, 2016. Online at: hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.13761232.0040.113
