The Movie Project is Dead: Rest in Peace

When I was an undergraduate at the now decfunct Indiana University I took film classes with James Naremore, Harry Geduld, and Peter Bondanella. Film was not my major at the time but semiology was the in thing in film and I was interested in semiology and all other theoretical -ologys and -isms that were happening in film and literary studies.

I had had an interest in film before this. I had read Robin Wood’s monograph on Alfred Hitchcock. It blew me away. I was gobsmacked that film criticism could be so good. I was amazedy at how attentive Wood was and I was amazed at how perceptive he was. Because of my interest in Wood I was eventually drawn to Ian Cameron’s Movie journal, a journal Wood wrote extensively for and I subscribed to it sometime in the 1970s, the period in which the journal was revived.

Ever since that time it lodged in the back of my mind that I should  write a dissertation on Movie. Movie, you see, though it was important in the Anglo-American world of Britain, Canada, the United States, and Australia, does not get the attention it deserves given its role in bringing an attention to film details and a type or form of auteurism to the English speaking world. By the way, when I did actually do my dissertation, however, it dealt with another topic, Mormon Studies. 

Despite getting the dissertation blues off my back I still had an urge to do that scholarly dissertation on Movie. So, sometime in the 2010s I got was able to get supervisor at the University of Warwick who was willing to supervise me on the Movie project. I applied and was accepted. I decided not to matriculate at Warwick when I did not get any monies, however. 

Still I could not get the Movie project out of my mind. I went back to my documentary materials and outline for the project on my computer and tweaked it a bit. I then contacted two scholars at Cambridge, a place I already know fairly well, who agreed to take me on and agreed to take the project on.

Before I applied to Cambridge—I would have requested admission into Selwyn College for those who are interested—I did some checking around because I needed a goodly amount of primary source materials to do the project as envisioned. The dissertation as planned was to have had three chapters, a preface or introduction, and a conclusion. Chapter one would have focused on the origins of Movie. Chapter two would have been on the culture of Movie focusing on those who wrote for it and the connections they might have to other film study journals and cultures. This chapter would also briefly discuss the importance Movie placed on design. Chapter three would have been on the economics of Movie, a topic that has been generally ignored by contemporary film studies scholars.

Because I needed to use primary source materials, particularly for chapter three, I contacted the new Movie at the University of Warwick, I contacted the folks at the University of Reading who had ties to Movie, and I contacted Jill Hollis at Cameron and Hollis Jill Hollis was the wife of Ian Cameron, the founder and publisher of Movie ever since its first issue came out in 1962. I also I looked to see if there was anything on Movie is in the archives of the British Film Institute. In all this digital running around I found some what might be called oral histories with Cameron and others connected to Movie at a University of Reading website. i found one document relating to Cameron at the BFI, an interview. And I found out from Jill Hollis that she had no primary source material beyond the issues of the journal itself.

Because of the paucity of primary source materials and because I don’t think a dissertation relying on oral histories can really work in the way I wanted it to, I dropped the Movie project once and for all. As a consequence I must admit that I feel some regret and am somewhat sad to have had to drop the project. So, I guess it is back to retirement time for this wanna be lifelong student.