Laura Mulvey

Directing

Laura Mulvey

Born

1941-08-15 (85)

Known for

Directing

Credits

27 titles

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She previously taught at Bulmershe College, the London College of Printing, the University of East Anglia, and the British Film Institute. Mulvey is best known for her essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", written in 1973 and published in 1975 in the influential British film theory journal Screen. Mulvey also was prominent as an avant-garde filmmaker in the 1970s and 1980s.

Known for

Film credits

2010s · 2 titles

Behind the camera

The Bad Sister poster
5.3

Jane is the illegitimate daughter of a Scottish landowner. She is disowned and expelled from his estates, but although she settles down to a new life in London, she is still haunted by the memory of her childhood and her mother's mysterious death. In a trance, she sets out on dreamlike journeys in search of freedom and revenge.

The Bad Sister

1983

Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons poster
6.6

Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.

Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons

1974

Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons poster
6.6

Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.

Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons

1974

Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons poster
6.6

Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.

Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons

1974

Riddles of the Sphinx poster
4.8

In this avant-garde classic, protagonist Louise deals with a change in her lifestyle in which she must learn to negotiate domestic life and motherhood.

Riddles of the Sphinx

1977

Riddles of the Sphinx poster
4.8

In this avant-garde classic, protagonist Louise deals with a change in her lifestyle in which she must learn to negotiate domestic life and motherhood.

Riddles of the Sphinx

1977

Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti poster
6.2

An unconventional portrait of painter Frida Kahlo and photographer Tina Modotti. Simple in style but complex in its analysis, it explores the divergent themes and styles of two contemporary and radical women artists working in the upheaval of the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.

Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti

1983

Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti poster
6.2

An unconventional portrait of painter Frida Kahlo and photographer Tina Modotti. Simple in style but complex in its analysis, it explores the divergent themes and styles of two contemporary and radical women artists working in the upheaval of the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.

Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti

1983

Crystal Gazing poster
7.0

Experimental drama set in London during the Thatcher administration involving four characters: Neil, a science-fiction illustrator; Kim, a woman rock musician; Vermilion, an analyst of satellite photography; and Julian, an old friend of the illustrator who has just finished his Ph.D thesis on the fairy-tales of Charles Perrault. Their four lives are closely interlinked as events happen to each of them.

Crystal Gazing

1982

Crystal Gazing poster
7.0

Experimental drama set in London during the Thatcher administration involving four characters: Neil, a science-fiction illustrator; Kim, a woman rock musician; Vermilion, an analyst of satellite photography; and Julian, an old friend of the illustrator who has just finished his Ph.D thesis on the fairy-tales of Charles Perrault. Their four lives are closely interlinked as events happen to each of them.

Crystal Gazing

1982

Amy! poster
6.3

Amy Johnson was the first woman to fly solo from Great Britain to Australia. Mulvey and Wollen’s experimental documentary combines newsreel footage of the aviator’s arrival, dramatic recreations of events from her life and contemporary discussions by feminist groups on the subject of heroism in this most unconventional biopic.

Amy!

1980

Disgraced Monuments poster
7.0

Filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Mark Lewis use rare archival footage and interviews with artists, art historians, and museum directors to examine the fate of Soviet-era monuments during successive political regimes, from the Russian Revolution through the collapse of communism. Mulvey and Lewis highlight both the social relevance of these relics and the cyclical nature of history. Broadcast on Channel Four as part of the 'Global Image' series (1992-1994).

Disgraced Monuments

1994

Disgraced Monuments poster
7.0

Filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Mark Lewis use rare archival footage and interviews with artists, art historians, and museum directors to examine the fate of Soviet-era monuments during successive political regimes, from the Russian Revolution through the collapse of communism. Mulvey and Lewis highlight both the social relevance of these relics and the cyclical nature of history. Broadcast on Channel Four as part of the 'Global Image' series (1992-1994).

Disgraced Monuments

1994

Disgraced Monuments poster
7.0

Filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Mark Lewis use rare archival footage and interviews with artists, art historians, and museum directors to examine the fate of Soviet-era monuments during successive political regimes, from the Russian Revolution through the collapse of communism. Mulvey and Lewis highlight both the social relevance of these relics and the cyclical nature of history. Broadcast on Channel Four as part of the 'Global Image' series (1992-1994).

Disgraced Monuments

1994

I Learned an Awful Lot in Little Rock poster
NR

Retiring [in]Transition founding co-editor Catherine Grant reflects on her curation of Laura Mulvey’s remix of a sequence from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) in the opening editorial of our journal’s inaugural issue in 2014. Here she presents a new videographic study of this remix that she made in collaboration with Mulvey herself in 2024.

I Learned an Awful Lot in Little Rock

2024

No artwork available
NR

23 August 2008 consists of two shots. A brief opening shot, intercut with inter-titles, of the famous Al-Mutanabbi Street book market in Baghdad is followed by an unbroken eighteen-minute monologue, shot from a single, still camera position and simply recording the speaker’s words without interruption. In it, Faysal Abudullah gradually builds a portrait of his relationship with his younger brother, Kamel, and in the process evokes the lives of Iraqi intellectuals of the left, driven into exile in the early 1980s by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Faysal describes Kamel’s decision to return to Iraq in 2003, his work for the new Ministry of Culture and his tragic death at the hands of unknown assassins on 23 August 2008. While the film throws light on little known aspects of Iraq’s political history, primarily it is the story of the two brothers, of Faysal’s devotion to Kamel and their contrasting attitudes to exile and to life itself.

23rd August 2008

2013