Film and Television (Audio)

Song rights, first time directors, female comedians, and a critical intervention by Steven Spielberg all arise in this discussion between Beatles: Revolutions co-curator Joe Palladino and I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) writer/producer Bob Gale and lead actress Nancy Allen. The three speakers discuss the origins of this film, the screenplay structure, and the joy of a young cast/crew building a nost...

Visual storytelling and genre blending are central topics in this wide-ranging discussion between Quiet Place screenwriters Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and Pollock Theater director Matt Ryan. Beck and Woods reflect on and explain their desire to build a monster/sci-fi/horror/silent film that paid homage to classic television and cinema creators like Rod Serling, Alfred Hitchcock, and Charlie Chapli...

Screaming girls, overwhelmed security, and segregated auditoriums all arise in musicology Professor David Novak (UC Santa Barbara) and rock journalist Ivor Davis’ discussion about Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and the Beatles’ American audience reception. Part of a small cadre of British journalists invited, Davis accompanied the Beatles for the entirety of their astonishing first US...

A Q&A session with Writer/Director/Producer Miguel Coyula and Actor/Co-Producer Lynn Cruz of the documentary Nadie (2017). Coyula and Cruz discuss the production of the film and their work with the subject of the documentary, the reclusive Cuban poet, Rafael Alcides. The Q&A session, moderated by UCSB FIlm and Media Studies Professor, Cristina Venegas, covers the banning of the film in Cuba, the e...

The Beatles' final concert, their late-era conflicts, and the complicated history of director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be documentary all arise in this discussion between musician Alan Parsons and Music Professor David Novak (UC Santa Barbara). Parsons was a teenage sound engineer at Abbey Road studios when he was assigned to record audio for the Beatles as they worked through this iconic alb...

With its extreme sex, violence, and gore, Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein has alternately excited, disgusted, and baffled audiences for decades. In this conversation, media Professor Bliss Cua Lim (UC Irvine) and film and media graduate student Rachael Ball (UC Santa Barbara) unpack and celebrate this exceptional movie. Lim and Ball describe the production, release, and response to Flesh f...

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Josh Singer (Spotlight, The Post) discusses First Man (2018) with Matt Ryan as part of the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Script to Screen series. Singer talks about the depth of research necessary to write the screenplay for First Man, including the creative challenges involved in portraying Neil Armstrong who was known for being a man of few words in a film that also has...

Marsha Kinder, Professor of Cinematic Arts at USC, joins moderator Cristina Venegas, Professor of Film and Media Studies at UCSB, for a discussion of Víctor Erice’s 1973 directorial debut, The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena). Their conversation addresses the significance of Spirit of the Beehive in terms of the history of Spanish cinema, and particularly its production at the end...

Science and humanities professor Colin Milburn (UC Davis) and graduate student Wesley Jacks (UC Santa Barbara) explore the legacy of James Whale’s iconic Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Their talk touches on key similarities and differences between Bride, Whale’s earlier Frankenstein (1931) film, and the original Mary Shelley novel. In addition to exploring the narrative and formal components of eac...

In the opening conversation within the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Frankenstein: Afterlives film series, CWC director Patrice Petro and English professor Julie Carlson (UC Santa Barbara) discuss the life of Mary Shelley and the representation of her views and career in director Haifaa Al-Mansour’s new biopic, Mary Shelley. During the discussion, professors Petro and Carlson cover the film’s feminist elem...

A conversation with Tamer El Said, Director of In the Last Days of the City (2016), and UCSB Film and Media Studies Professor, Laila Shereen Sakr. Discussion covers El Saids work filming In the Last Days of the City. Shot between 2006 and 2008, the years leading up to the Egyptian Revolution, the film reflects a growing tension in Ciaro. El Siad comments on trying to capture his sense of the city...

In this Q&A conversation Debra Granik, director and co-writer of Leave No Trace (2018), is joined by moderator and Pollock Theater Director Matt Ryan. The event is part of the Carsey-Wolf Centers Script to Screen series and covers the development of the film and its adaptation from Mindy Mejias novel of the same name. Granik discusses how characters and story were reworked for the film, the resear...

A Q&A session with Co-Directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen of the documentary RGB (2018). Cohen and West discuss their work researching and producing RBG, which profiles the career of Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The session, moderated by UCSB English Professor Jeannine DeLombard, covers the production and reception of the film, its significance in the current political climate, and...

The initial popularity, enduring legacy, and creative fan cultures surrounding The Sound of Music all arise in this discussion between Carsey-Wolf Center director Patrice Petro and Film and Media Studies professor Caryl Flinn (University of Michigan). Describing the film as about the joy of singing, Prof. Flinn positions The Sound of Music and its songs within the twilight of a golden era of film...

Race, gender, and union-busting violence all arise in this discussion of Debra Kopple’s iconic Harlan County, USA. Documentarian Betsy Taylor and historian Alice O’Connor (UC Santa Barbara) offer expert perspectives into connections between events and figures in Kopple’s film and broader environmental justice and labor struggles unfolding across the US in the early 1970s. In addition, Taylor’s int...

Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar-, Golden Globe-, and Emmy-winning actress, appeared in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001. After a recent screening at UC Santa Barbara, she discussed the film and more. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33950]

UCSB Pollock Theater Director Matt Ryan and crew meet Comic-Con 2018 participants in San Diego. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33951]

Novelist, critic and cultural historian Marina Werner and Peter Bloom (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) engage Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) from several angles. They discuss the film’s astounding technical craft, Reiniger’s addition of feminist perspectives to the narrative, and the film’s relation to both the Arabian classic 1001 Nights and the French translation/adaptatio...

Novelist Sinaan Antoon and journalist Leila Fadel join UCSB’s Mona Damluji for a post-screening discussion of Kasim Abid’s 2008 film Life After the Fall. They discuss the difficulties of living and working in U.S.-occupied Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the decline of security and safety, loyalties-of-necessity to one’s particular neighborhood in the power vacuum that ensued, and the compl...

Amar Akbar Anthony was a Bollywood blockbuster when it was released in 1977 and has become a classic of Hindi cinema and a touchstone of Indian popular culture. William Elison (Religious Studies, UCSB), Christian Lee Novetzke (International Studies, University of Washington) and Andy Rotman (Religion, Smith College) discuss their co-authored book on the film that offers a sympathetic and layered i...

UC Santa Barbara professors Eloi Grasset (Spanish and Portuguese) and Cristina Venegas (Film and Media Studies) discuss Lucrecia Martel’s adaptation of Antonio Di Benedetto’s iconic Argentine novel about the interconnected decay of the Spanish empire and one of its low-level bureaucrats who is stationed in Paraguay. Grasset and Venegas examine Martel’s approach to the interiority of Di Benedetto’s...

Bambi Haggins (Film and Media Studies, UC Irvine) joins Patrice Petro (Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center) for a conversation about the 2013 documentary "Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley." Haggins, who served as a historical consultant to the film, reflects on the five-decade career of Moms Mabley, the raucous, pioneering African-American vaudeville performer and comedian. Haggins discusses th...

Improvisational comedy, women in media, and the unpredictability of cult classic status all arise in this conversation about Drop Dead Gorgeous between actress Mindy Sterling and Carsey-Wolf Director Patrice Petro. The two discuss the importance of female-led and female-targeted comedy, and the powerful sense of place that screenwriter Lona Williams brought to the behind-the-scenes world of Minnes...

Based on a true story, I, Tonya (2017) is a darkly comedic tale of American figure skater Tonya Harding and her role in one of the most sensational scandals in sports history. Screenwriter/producer Steven Rogers discussed the film with Matt Ryan before a live audience at UCSB. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33751]

Orson Welles direction and his performance as Shakespeare’s legendary Falstaff are at the center of this conversation about Chimes at Midnight, Welles’ 1965 film masterpiece that was unavailable to the public for decades. Professors Jim Kearney (UC Santa Barbara) and Joseph McBride (San Francisco State University) discuss Welles’ lifelong admiration of the Bard and the film’s complicated productio...