The Killing Game: glamorous masks and murderous styles in Elio Petri’s La decima vittima
Anna Battista

Thursday 15 May, 14:00 – 18:00
ICA Cinema 1

She’s a hunter, he’s a victim. They live in a distant future and move in impossibly modernist environments, recalling at the same time the ambiance of comic books and abstract art. Their Courrèges ian costumes (designed by Giulio Coltellacci in collaboration with the Sorelle Fontana fashion house) are impeccable, and their Technicolor world is filled with superfluous objects. Discover through this talk the glamorous futuristic atelier of illusions created by director Elio Petri in The 10th Victim, a “style film” and a complex artistic achievement with subtle political undertones aimed at satirizing consumer society and modern lifestyles. Don a pair of vintage ‘60s sunglasses and get ready to enter the universe that has vowed sci-fi and pop art fans, photographers, artists, fashionistas and even the House of Gucci.

Anna Battista is a writer, journalist and lecturer. Her articles about culture, fashion, lifestyle, politics and social issues have been featured in publications internationally.

With grateful thanks to the Fondazione Micol Fontana, Rome, Italy, for facilitating this research.

I Want That Mink! Film noir and Fashion
Petra Dominkova

Thursday 15 May, 14.45
ICA Cinema 1

One of film noir’s prominent features, if not a necessity, is of course the femme fatale . As well as being an intelligent and powerful woman who inevitably leads men to destruction, she is often after money. But what this cold-blooded and greedy creature really wants is for money to be seen, and so she embellishes herself with glittering jewelry, luxurious dresses and designer hats. In her talk Petra Dominkova will argue that one garment in particular was singled out in film noir as an ultimate symbol of luxury, imbued with ominous importance as a burdensome object of desire – the mink coat.

Petra Dominkova is Lecturer in Eastern European Cinema at East and Central European Studies, Charles University, Prague. She is also a PhD candidate in film studies.

Looking Sharp
Barry Curtis and Claire Pajaczkowska

Thursday 15 May, 15.30
ICA Cinema 1

This talk will consider what it takes to look sharp, building a special case for the turned-up collar. Beginning with the 1940s, Hollywood film has become distinctive for its iconic images of dangerous masculinity - characters such as Dick Tracy, Sunset Boulevard’s Joe Gillis, and The Godfather’s Il Neri have assumed a visual style that is characteristically suffused in menace and fear. Barry Curtis and Claire Pajaczkowska will show how the cinematic body can be both displayed and shielded through the usage of garment and the play with its shadow. They will argue that garments become gestures towards the actions that may, at the same time, mitigate and express menace: “the turned-up collar erects a fetishistic blade of shadow around the nape of the neck.”

Barry Curtis is Emeritus Professor of Visual Culture at Middlesex University, and a visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art. His book on the “haunted house” in film will be published in 2008.

Claire Pajaczkowska is Senior Research Tutor in the School of Fashion and Textiles at the Royal College of Art, London. She is currently co-editing a book entitled Shame and Sexuality: Psychoanalysis and Visual Culture.

Five Types of Stain
Kitty Hauser

Thursday 15 May, 16.30
ICA Cinema 1

The bloodstained garment is a classic feature of detective fiction, cinema and TV (Stage Fright, CSI, Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte), serving as trace, symbol, clue and narrative device. It suggests guilt, but keeps the precise nature of its origins a secret; it asks to be read, but remains illegible to all but the most skilled of interpreters. The stain is a narrative in condensed form, a mute witness that threatens to blow the criminal’s cover, for the successful criminal is one who escapes pristine, with no stain. Kitty Hauser will probe at the semiotics of stained clothing (with more than a glance at its prehistory in Christian iconography and primal shame), and consider its role in the construction of cinematic and novelistic narratives of crime and deduction.

Kitty Hauser has won several prestigious awards for her writing and criticism in art and visual culture. Her book Shadow Sites was published by Oxford University Press in 2007.

Sopranos' Bada Bing - More than Gangster Bling?
Lorraine Gamman

Thursday 15 May, 17.15
ICA Cinema 1

Forget about the iconic Hollywood gangster figure that, coiffured and manicured to perfection, relies for his on-screen magic on sharply tailored bespoke suits as well as powerful images of masculinity. Embrace instead the Sopranos, the cult TV mafia series. Full of anti-fashion and overweight characters whose attire cannot entirely cover the misshapen underbelly of the American mafia, the Sopranos offer more character complexity, and moral questioning for the audience, than anything found in The Godfather trilogy. Lorraine Gamman’s talk will argue that unlike the forcefully persuasive figures of the gangster movie stereotypes, Sopranos’ characters have little image connection with gangster films, and more in common with the moral dilemmas found in Shakespearean plays.

Lorraine Gamman is Professor in Design Studies and Director of Design Against Crime Research Centre at Central Saint Martins College. She is also author and co-editor of several books spanning design, feminism and popular culture.

Get Carter
UK 1971. Dir Mike Hodges.
With Michael Caine, Britt Ekland. 112 min. 35mm.

Thursday 15 May, 18.30
ICA Cinema 1

With an introduction by Alistair O'Neill, Senior Lecturer in Fashion, and writer.

Bleak, violent and stylish. The iconic criminal look exhibited in Get Carter is burnt into the eyes of many. You may as well throw the gangster rulebook out of the window; Jack Carter (Michael Caine) wreaks havoc across Newcastle with little care to the consequences. As cold as the Tyne & Wear backdrop, Carter wealds his thuggish craving for revenge to murderous proportions. Armed with a double-barreled shotgun and a killer wardrobe designed by Vangie Harrison, Michael Caine gives a career defining performance. An old fashioned hoodlum in a grimy and transitional landscape is the quintessence of cool in this refreshingly rendered gangster film by Mike Hodges.

Alistair O'Neill is a Research Fellow and a Senior Lecturer in Fashion
History and Theory at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.
His first publication London- after a fashion (Reaktion Books, 2007)
considers the relationship between fashion and modernity in twentieth
century London. O'Neill is now consulting the BBC on a programme on
fashion and street style, and is working on a book on the Savile Row
tailor Tommy Nutter.