Researcher in Focus: Steven Gregory

Steven Gregory is a second year full time research student within the Department of Drama: Theatre, Film and Television at the University Of Bristol. He is currently researching the Joseph Losey Collection.

'I am researching the Joseph Losey Special Collection at the bfi for a thesis examining this American expatriate's authorial presence within films he directed. The intention is to highlight the inherent tensions between the cinematic styles and conventions of initially Hollywood and British cinema and then later also European modernist cinema, all of which are apparent in the director's films after the mid 1950s and mark them as transnational. I am regarding Losey as someone whose involvement in a number of aspects of film production and his authorial presence in the films themselves express an exilic identity, from the circumstance of social and cultural relocation, and a willingness to explore interstitiality (in this case, a multiplicity of various national cinematic influences to create a hybridised cinematic form). As an exilic and transnational film-maker Losey's filmmaking practice is theoretically considered in my project to be 'accented'.

Evidence for this thesis is found in the wealth of material in the Special Collection on the majority of Losey's films, after he based himself in Britain in the 1950s and then relocated to France in the 1970s. Of great relevance to my project are the primary sources of various stages of scripts (particularly the stages of adaptation in which Losey had involvement), his production notes on design and actor choice, marketing and publicity material for the films, the immense amount of correspondence throughout his career, as well as critical reviews, interviews and articles from the American, British and European press.'