Claire Crowther and Simon Barraclough are both poets with a keen interest in silent cinema. Please join them in a discussion and screening of The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann), F W Murnau’s 1924 classic. The critic C A Lejeune has called it ‘the most important of Murnau’s films. It influenced the future of motion picture photography and stimulated a new kind of camera-thinking with a definite narrative end’. The event is organised by The Cinema Museum and Hercules Editions, publishers of Claire Crowther’s recent cinema-inspired chapbook, Silents.
Claire Crowther’s poems have been widely reviewed and published in journals such as the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, New Statesman, Poetry Review, and have been recorded by the Poetry Archive. She has published three full collections with Shearsman Books, Stretch of Closures (which was shortlisted for the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection prize), The Clockwork Gift and On Narrowness, as well as three pamphlets. She is currently Poet in Residence at the Royal Mint.
Simon Barraclough’s collections include Los Alamos Mon Amour, shortlisted for the Forward Prize in 2008, Bonjour Tetris, Neptune Blue, and most recently, Sunspots, published by Penned in the Margins. Simon has developed a number of live, multi-media events, involving poetry and film, the most recent being Psycho Poetica, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hitchcock’s seminal thriller, and The Debris Field: Salvaging the Titanic in Word, Sound and Image.
The event will be chaired by Bryony Dixon, curator with responsibility for the BFI National Archive’s extensive silent film collection. She has researched and written on many aspects of early film, curated a number of film restorations, and programmed for a variety of specialist film festivals. She also regularly contributes to BFI Southbank seasons and events and has co-directed the annual British Silent Film Festival for 16 years. Her book 100 Silent Films, in the BFI Screen Guides series, was published in 2011.
Doors open at 13.30, for a 14.30 start.
Refreshments will be available in our licenced cafe/bar.
TICKETS & PRICING
Tickets £5.
Tickets may be purchased from Billetto, or direct from the Museum by calling 020 7840 2200 in office hours.
