Peter Wollen

Peter Wollen (born 29 June 1938 in London) is a film theorist and writer. He studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. Both political journalist and film theorist, Wollen's Signs and Meaning in the Cinema (1969) helped to transform the discipline of film studies by incorporating the methodology of structuralism and semiotics.

Filmography

Wollen's first film credit was as cowriter of Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (Professione: Reporter, Italy, 1975), and he made his debut as a director with Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (1974), the first of six films cowritten and co-directed with his wife, Laura Mulvey. The low-budget Penthesilea portrayed women's language and mythology as silenced by patriarchal structures. Acknowledging the influence of Jean-Luc Godard's Le Gai savoir (France, 1968), Wollen intended the film to fuse avant-garde and radically political elements. The resulting work is innovative in the context of British cinema history, although its relentlessly didactic approach did not make for mass appeal.

For Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), Wollen and Mulvey obtained a BFI Production Board grant, which enabled them to work with greater technical resources, rewriting the Oedipal myth from a female standpoint.

The deliberately ahistorical AMY! (1980), commemorating Amy Johnson's solo flight from Britain to Australia, synthesises themes previously covered by Wollen and Mulvey. In Crystal Gazing (1982) formal experimentation is muted and narrative concerns emphasised. Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti (1982), a short film tied to an international art exhibition curated by Wollen, and The Bad Sister (1982), a drama based on a novel by Emma Tennant, were the final projects on which Wollen and Mulvey collaborated.

Wollen's only solo feature, Friendship's Death (1987), starring Bill Paterson and Tilda Swinton, is the story of the relationship between a British war correspondent and a female extraterrestrial robot on a peace mission to Earth, who, missing her intended destination of MIT, inadvertently lands in Amman, Jordan during the events of Black September 1970.

Wollen has taught film at a number of universities and is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Popular Culture

The Sydney University Film Group and WEA Film Study Group used Peter Wollen's book "Signs and Meaning in the Cinema" for the basis of a season of film screenings talks and discussions on the ideas in the book in September and October 1969.

Bibliography

• Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture, by Peter Wollen. New Edition, Verso Books, 2008

• Electronic Shadows: The Art of Tina Keane, by Peter Wollen, Jean Fisher, and Richard Dyer. Black Dog Publishing, 2005.

• Paris / Manhattan: Writings on Art, by Peter Wollen. Verso Books, 2004.

• "Edward Hopper", by Peter Wollen, Sheena Wagstaff, David Anfam, Brian O'Doherty & Margaret Iversen. Tate Publishing, 2004.

• Autopia: Cars and Culture, Edited by Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr. Reaktion Books, 2003.

• Paris Hollywood: Writings on Film, by Peter Wollen. Verso Books, 2002.

• "Victor Burgin", by Peter Wollen & Francette Pacteau. Fundacio Antoni Tàpies, 2001

• "Subject Plural: Crowds in Contemporary Art" by Peter Wollen, Marti Mayo & Paola Morsiani. Contemporary Arts Museum, 2001

• Making Time: Considering Time as a Material in Contemporary Video and Film, by Amy Cappellazzo, Peter Wollen, and Adriano Pedrosa. Distributed Art Publishers, 2000.

• Addressing the Century: 100 Years of Art and Fashion, by Peter Wollen. University of California Press, 1999.

• Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances, Edited by Lynne Cooke and Peter Wollen. The New Press, 1999.

• Who is Andy Warhol? by Colin MacCabe, Mark Francis, and Peter Wollen. British Film Institute, 1998.

• Scene of the Crime, edited by Ralph Rugoff, by Anthony Vidler, and Peter Wollen. MIT Press 1997.

• Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, by Peter Wollen, expanded and revised edition. London: British Film Institute, 1998.

• "Howard Hawks, American Artist", edited by Peter Wollen & Jim Hillier. British Film Institute, 1996

• Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture, by Peter Wollen. Indiana University Press, 1993

• Singin' in the Rain, by Peter Wollen. British Film Institute 1993.

• "Black and White: Dress from the 1920s to Today" by Peter Wollen, Claudia Gould, Anne Hollander, Lucy R Sibley, Kathryn A Jakes & Sophie Anargyros. Wexner Center for the Arts, 1992.

• "On the Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1957-1972", by Peter Wollen. MIT Press, 1989

• "Addressing The Century", by Peter Wollen. Hayward Gallery, 1998.

• "Komar and Melamid", by Peter Wollen & Mark Francis. The Fruitmarket Gallery, 1985.

• "Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti", by Peter Wollen & Laura Mulvey. Whitechapel Gallery, 1982

• "Chris Welsby: Films, Photographs, Writings", edited by Peter Wollen. Arts Council of Great Britain, 1981

• Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, by Peter Wollen. London: Secker and Warburg, 1969-1972.

• "Working papers on the cinema: sociology and semiology", edited by Peter Wollen. BFI Education Dept. 1969

• "Samuel Fuller", edited by Peter Wollen & Ed Wills. Edinburgh, 1969

• "Orson Welles - Study Unit No. 9", edited by Peter Wollen. BFI Education Dept. 1969

Interviews

• Field, Simon, "Two Weeks on Another Planet", Monthly Film Bulletin 646, 1987, pp. 324–6

• Friedman, Lester D., "Interview with Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey on Riddles of the Sphinx", Millennium Film Journal 4/5, 1979, pp. 14–32

• Mulvey, Laura and Wollen, Peter, "Written Discussion", After Image, July 1976, pp. 31–9

Further reading

• Also published at pp. 467–488 of book Tom McDonough (2004) (Editor) Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents. The MIT Press (April 1, 2004) 514 pages ISBN 0-262-63300-0 ISBN 978-0262633000

External links

• UCLA Strobe Website'
• New Left Review Website'