Walker Continues Brown Bag Series With Talk on Hitchcock Adaptation

SALISBURY, MD---Salisbury University’s Brown Bag Discussion Series continues with a presentation by Dr. Elsie Walker, assistant professor in the English Department and editor of Literature Film Quarterly.

Walker speaks on "Hitchcock with New Music: a Film Maker's Adaptation of Vertigo Wednesday, November 29, at noon in the University Gallery of Fulton Hall.

Her talk focuses on a film adaptation of a scene from Vertigo. The film, ironically entitled Sunshine (2005), is made by Meesoo Lee, an Asian-Canadian independent film maker whose work is well known in fringe film festival circuits and experimental galleries in Canada.

"The idea of being able to independently manipulate a scene from Vertigo is partly interesting since the film, released in 1958, was literally locked away by Hitchcock for many years and was only available for wide circulation in pristine form after 1997,” said Walker.

“Such a process is part of a new era of spectatorship in which films are not only widely available, but processes of digitally manipulating even the most revered films are possible for many. Lee's film may be seen as part of a new democratization of interpreting films through creative processes which reframe their meanings for new audiences."

One of Lee’s recurring processes involves manipulating film clips and combining them with new music. In this example, a Mozart melody featured in a key scene of the central character’s mental disturbance is replaced with a darkly parodic rendition of the song “You Are My Sunshine” by the band Low. The overall effect of the new music, along with Lee’s manipulation of visual rhythms is initially risible but ultimately haunting in that it utterly changes the tenor, weight and focus of the scene in terms of narrative, characterization and psychological implication.

Walker’s includes a screening of this undistributed 3-minute film.  Admission is free and the public is invited.  Light refreshments are served. For more information call 410-219-2872 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.