Edinburgh Film Seminar: Sarah Artt

by Dr Sarah Artt

In 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' (1975), Laura Mulvey speaks of the thrill of “conceiv[ing] a new language of desire”: in this talk, I will trace some of my own thinking on this idea, touching on a wide range of films I have encountered over the last thirty years.

I end my book Quiet Pictures: Women and Silence in Contemporary British and French Cinema with the suggestion that it is shared, reciprocal gazing that is most radical and that silence and quiet can foster a space for this to happen. This talk will consider the importance of locating those radical, reciprocal gazes, alongside the essential roles of audiences, critics, and scholars in film culture.

Dr Sarah Artt is Lecturer in English and Film Studies at Edinburgh Napier University, where she has worked since 2007. Quiet Pictures: Women and Silence in Contemporary British and French Cinema (2024) is her first book. She also writes a weekly Substack called ‘Visual Aroma’ about horror and art cinemas and the ways they evoke smell.

Each semester, the Edinburgh Film Seminars bring a broad range of film academics and experts to the University of Edinburgh.

Host or Publisher School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures