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Peter Wollen
Peter Wollen
Peter Wollen
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Peter Wollen (29 June 1938 – 17 December 2019) was an English film theorist and filmmaker. He studied English at Christ Church, Oxford. Both a political journalist and film theorist, Wollen's Signs and Meaning in the Cinema (1969) helped to transform the discipline of film studies by incorporating the methodology of structuralism and semiotics.[1] He taught film at a number of universities and was Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles at the time of his retirement from academe in 2005.[2][3]

Key Information

Life

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Wollen was born on 29 June 1938, in Woodford, northeast London, to Douglas and Winifred (Waterman) Wollen.[2] Douglas was a Methodist minister and Winifred was a teacher. Peter attended a Methodist boarding school, Kingswood School, in Bath, Somerset, England.[2]

In 1959, Wollen graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in English literature.[2]

In 1968, Wollen married noted film theorist and his partner in filmmaking, Laura Mulvey. They divorced in 1993 and soon afterward he wed writer and artist, Leslie Dick. He had a son from his first marriage and a daughter from his second.[2]

Wollen died of Alzheimer's disease on 17 December 2019, from which he had suffered for many years.[4][2][3]

Academic career

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By the mid-1960s, Wollen was writing for journals such as the New Left Review under the pseudonym of Lee Russell.[5][6] Through a bit of self-reflexivity, Wollen interviewed himself as Lee Russell in 1997.[7][8]

Wollen joined the British Film Institute's education department in the late 1960s, at the behest of its director, Paddy Whannel, who had been impressed by his work. Wollen explained, "One of the basic goals of the education department was to support anyone who wanted to teach film in schools or universities. And one way to support them was by publishing books which they could use in class."[2] Subsequently, the BFI created a series of film books titled, "Cinema One," and Signs and Meaning in the Cinema was the ninth book released under that banner.

Signs and Meaning in the Cinema's initial publication in 1969 was followed by a revised edition, with a new appendix, just three years later. It quickly gained traction in the burgeoning film-studies world of the 1970s. In 1976, Robin Wood contended, "Peter Wollen's Signs and Meaning in the Cinema is probably the most influential book on film in English of the past decade."[9] And the book has continued to wield influence decades later—having been released in a fifth, "silver" edition in 2013.[7] In a Sight & Sound poll in 2010, Signs and Meaning repeatedly cropped up—leading critic Nick Roddick to exclaim, "If there is one book to rule them all, it is Peter Wollen's Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. The revised and enlarged edition of 1972 is the most concise, lucid and inspiring introduction to thinking about film ever written."[8]

Filmography

[edit]

Wollen's first film credit was as cowriter of Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger in 1975. He made his debut as a director with Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (1974), the first of six films cowritten and co-directed with his wife, Laura Mulvey. The low-budget Penthesilea portrayed women's language and mythology as silenced by patriarchal structures. Acknowledging the influence of Jean-Luc Godard's Le Gai savoir (France, 1969), Wollen intended the film to fuse avant-garde and radically political elements. The resulting work is innovative in the context of British cinema history, although its relentlessly didactic approach did not make for mass appeal.[original research?]

For Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), Wollen and Mulvey obtained a BFI Production Board grant, which enabled them to work with greater technical resources, rewriting the Oedipal myth from a female standpoint.

The deliberately ahistorical AMY! (1980), commemorating Amy Johnson's solo flight from Britain to Australia, synthesises themes previously covered by Wollen and Mulvey. In Crystal Gazing (1982) formal experimentation is muted and narrative concerns emphasised. Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti (1982), a short film tied to an international art exhibition curated by Wollen, and The Bad Sister (1982), a drama based on a novel by Emma Tennant, were the final projects on which Wollen and Mulvey collaborated.[citation needed]

Wollen's only solo feature, Friendship's Death (1987), starring Bill Paterson and Tilda Swinton, is the story of the relationship between a British war correspondent and a female extraterrestrial robot on a peace mission to Earth, who, missing her intended destination of MIT, inadvertently lands in Amman, Jordan during the events of Black September 1970.[10]

[edit]

The Sydney University Film Group and WEA Film Study Group used Wollen's Signs and Meaning in the Cinema for the basis of a season of film screenings talks and discussions on the ideas in the book in September and October 1969.[11]

Bibliography

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Interviews

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  • Field, Simon, "Two Weeks on Another Planet", Monthly Film Bulletin 646, 1987, pp. 324–6
  • Friedman, Lester D., "Interview with Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey on Riddles of the Sphinx", Millennium Film Journal 4/5, 1979, pp. 14–32
  • Mulvey, Laura and Wollen, Peter, "Written Discussion", After Image, July 1976, pp. 31–9

References

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Further reading

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[edit]
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Peter Wollen

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Peter Wollen was a British film theorist, screenwriter, and filmmaker known for his pioneering role in introducing structuralist and semiotic approaches to Anglo-American film studies. His seminal 1969 book Signs and Meaning in the Cinema transformed the field by applying semiological analysis to cinema, reinterpreting directors such as Sergei Eisenstein, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jean-Luc Godard within broader modernist and ideological frameworks. Wollen's theoretical writings, including influential essays such as “The Two Avant-Gardes” and contributions to journals like Screen, helped shift British film criticism toward structural, historical, and political perspectives. Born in London on 29 June 1938, Wollen studied English at Christ Church, Oxford, and initially worked as a political journalist before emerging as a leading figure in film theory during the late 1960s. He held positions at the British Film Institute's Education Department and played a key role in reshaping the journal Screen into a major platform for theoretical film discourse. In the 1970s, Wollen began his filmmaking career, co-writing the screenplay for Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975) and co-directing several experimental films with Laura Mulvey, including Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (1974), Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), AMY! (1980), Crystal Gazing (1982), Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti (1982), and The Bad Sister (1983). His solo feature as writer-director, Friendship’s Death (1987), further demonstrated his blend of intellectual rigor and narrative innovation. Wollen later taught film at universities in the United States, serving as professor and chair of the Department of Film, Television and New Media at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1988 to 2006. His later writings shifted toward more historical and biographical approaches, including extended considerations of Hitchcock and the intersections of modernism and British cinema. Wollen died on 17 December 2019 in England at the age of 81.

Early Life and Education

Peter Wollen was born on 29 June 1938 in Woodford, northeast London, England. He was the son of Douglas Wollen, a Methodist minister, and Winifred Wollen, a teacher. His father's ministerial postings led to frequent family moves during his childhood. Wollen attended Kingswood School, a boarding school in Bath, Somerset. He went on to study English literature at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1959.

Film Theory and Criticism

Early Writings

Peter Wollen began publishing film criticism and politically inflected essays in the mid-1960s, primarily under the pseudonym Lee Russell in the New Left Review, a journal whose editors he had known from his time at Oxford. These contributions combined political commentary with analysis of cinema, covering major directors including Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir, Stanley Kubrick, Louis Malle, Samuel Fuller, Howard Hawks, Roberto Rossellini, and John Ford. Notable examples of his work under this pseudonym include pieces that engaged with auteur theory and cinematic form, such as the 1968 article "Cinema—Code and Image." His writings as Lee Russell gained recognition and led Paddy Whannel, a key figure in film education, to invite Wollen to join the British Film Institute's education department in 1967. In this role during the late 1960s, Wollen contributed to initiatives promoting film studies and education within the BFI. These early efforts in journalism and institutional work marked his initial engagement with film theory and criticism.

Signs and Meaning in the Cinema

Signs and Meaning in the Cinema was first published in 1969 by Secker & Warburg in association with the British Film Institute as part of the Cinema One series. A revised and enlarged third edition followed in 1972 from Secker & Warburg, incorporating a new Conclusion (1972). The book reached its fifth edition in 2013, published by Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the British Film Institute as part of the BFI Silver series, featuring a new foreword by D. N. Rodowick and restored material from earlier editions including additional conclusions and appendices. The work introduced structuralist and semiotic methodologies to Anglo-American film studies, formulating a semiology of the cinema that positioned film as an exemplary sign system for broader theories of signification. This approach marked a shift from traditional aesthetic analysis toward structuralist frameworks in 1969, with the 1972 Conclusion signaling a further engagement with post-structuralist ideas and political modernism. Signs and Meaning in the Cinema is widely regarded as a foundational and groundbreaking text that transformed the emerging discipline of film studies by establishing common theoretical concerns and questions for the field. It remains highly influential as a brilliant and accessible theorisation of film as both an art form and a sign system. The book built on Wollen's earlier writings for the BFI and New Left Review.

Later Publications

In the later stages of his career, Peter Wollen produced a series of books and edited volumes that extended his inquiries into film, visual culture, and broader twentieth-century artistic movements. In 1993, he published Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture, a wide-ranging examination of avant-garde and radical subcultures that traces the hidden, suppressed dimensions of modernism, from Diaghilev's Russian Ballet to the Bauhaus fascination with Fordism and Hollywood, culminating in reflections on Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle and the responses of non-Western artists amid modernism's crisis; the book was reissued in a new edition by Verso in 2008. In 1992, Wollen authored Singin' in the Rain for the BFI Film Classics series, offering a focused analysis of the 1952 film's dance sequences, including a shot-by-shot breakdown of the title number and its challenges in capturing movement on screen. During the 1990s and 2000s, Wollen also engaged in editorial projects and essay collections that bridged film studies with other cultural domains. In 1996, he co-edited Howard Hawks, American Artist with Jim Hillier for the British Film Institute, a volume dedicated to reassessing the director's contributions to American cinema. In 2002, Verso published Paris Hollywood: Writings on Film, a collection of essays composed over the preceding decade that explores diverse topics without a unified theoretical framework, including analyses of directors such as Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jean Renoir; films like Blade Runner and Rules of the Game; and intersections between cinema, video art, anthropology, psychoanalysis, architecture, and digital technology. The following year, Wollen co-edited Autopia: Cars and Culture with Joe Kerr for Reaktion Books, an anthology that investigates the motor car's profound cultural impact across global contexts. In 2004, Verso released Paris/Manhattan: Writings on Art, another collection that addresses visual art themes ranging from Global Conceptualism and artists such as Gerhard Richter, Victor Burgin, and Frida Kahlo to the convergences of art with fashion, technology, the myth of the American West in film, and Situationist ideas on architecture and rubbish theory. Earlier curatorial work also yielded publications, such as the 1982 catalogue Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti, which documented an exhibition and reflected Wollen's ongoing interest in intersections between art and other media.

Filmmaking Career

Collaboration with Laura Mulvey

Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey, whom he married in 1968, collaborated on six experimental films between 1974 and 1983. These joint projects, which they co-directed and co-wrote, reflected their shared commitment to integrating film theory with practice, extending the semiotic and psychoanalytic concerns Wollen had explored in works such as Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. Their partnership produced Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (1974), Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), AMY! (1980), Crystal Gazing (1982), Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti (1983, short), and The Bad Sister (1983). The films are widely regarded as radical and experimental, often categorized as "theory films" that use essayistic structures, discontinuous narratives, and foregrounded cinematic techniques to interrogate dominant modes of representation. Early works such as Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons and Riddles of the Sphinx engaged with feminist myth, psychoanalysis, and the politics of looking, employing strategies like extended static shots, circular camera movements, and direct address to challenge conventional spectatorship. Later collaborations, including AMY!, Crystal Gazing, Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti, and The Bad Sister, shifted toward analyses of historical female figures, media imagery, and emerging socio-political contexts, while maintaining a commitment to counter-cinematic forms. These low-budget, independent productions were typically screened in festivals, academic settings, and alternative venues, serving as vehicles for theoretical speculation rather than mainstream narrative entertainment. Their work bridged avant-garde formalism and politically engaged filmmaking, contributing to broader debates on alternative cinema during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Friendship’s Death

Friendship’s Death is a 1987 British science fiction drama film written and directed by Peter Wollen, representing his only solo feature. The film stars Tilda Swinton as Friendship, a female extraterrestrial android sent to Earth on a peace mission, and Bill Paterson as Sullivan, a British war correspondent. Set in Amman, Jordan, during the Black September conflict of 1970, the story centers on Friendship's mistaken arrival in the war-torn city instead of her planned destination at MIT. After crash-landing, she encounters Sullivan in a hotel room, where the two engage in extended conversations about human violence, the Middle East situation, mortality, and the distinctions between humans and machines. The largely two-hander production, incorporating real news footage from the period including the destruction of hijacked airliners, unfolds primarily in confined settings with a low-budget approach resembling a stage play at times. As their dialogue progresses, Friendship identifies with the Palestinian militants as fellow outsiders and ultimately decides to join their struggle, abandoning her original mission. The screenplay draws from Wollen's own short story "Friendship's Death," first published in 1976. This film followed Wollen's earlier collaborative filmmaking projects.

Screenwriting

The Passenger

Peter Wollen co-wrote the screenplay for Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975), collaborating with Antonioni and Mark Peploe. Initially, the screenplay was written by Wollen and Peploe, with Peploe set to direct the project, but Antonioni took over directing and rewrote the script. This credit marked Wollen's primary foray into mainstream screenwriting, as he was one of several writers on the political thriller starring Jack Nicholson. Antonioni engaged Wollen and Peploe as younger writers and theorists for the project. The work on The Passenger occurred during the period when Wollen was also collaborating with Laura Mulvey on experimental films.

Academic Career

Teaching Positions

Peter Wollen held teaching positions at several universities, where he specialized in film, television, and media studies. After a short period teaching at the University of Essex in the 1970s, he relocated primarily to the United States and pursued an extended academic career there. He joined the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television as Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media in 1988, where he also served as chair of the Department of Film, Television and New Media, and continued until his retirement in 2005. Following his retirement from active teaching, Wollen was named Professor Emeritus at UCLA.

Personal Life

Marriages and Family

Peter Wollen married Laura Mulvey in 1968. The couple had one son, Chad. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1993. That same year, Wollen married the writer and artist Leslie Dick. They had one daughter, Audrey. Wollen remained married to Dick until his death in 2019.

Death and Legacy

Peter Wollen suffered from early-onset Alzheimer's disease for many years (almost two decades according to his son), leading to his retirement from teaching at UCLA in 2005. He had been in institutional care in England for the subsequent 14 years. He died on 17 December 2019 in Haslemere, Surrey, England, at the age of 81, with the cause of death attributed to Alzheimer's disease. Wollen's legacy rests primarily on his pioneering role in bringing semiotics and structuralism to English-language film studies. His 1969 book Signs and Meaning in the Cinema endures as a foundational text for the discipline, offering one of the earliest systematic applications of semiological theory to film and helping establish film studies as a rigorous academic field in the UK and US. Described as the single most influential film theorist in the English language, Wollen's work encouraged a shift toward theoretical and ideological engagement in film criticism, influencing subsequent generations of scholars and practitioners.

References

  1. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/news/peter-wollen-obituary-maven-british-film-theory
  2. http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/472653/index.html
  3. https://www.tft.ucla.edu/faculty/peter-wollen/
  4. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/movies/peter-wollen-dead.html
  5. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jan/08/peter-wollen-obituary
  6. https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii38/articles/peter-wollen-necessary-love.pdf
  7. https://newleftreview.org/issues/i49/articles/lee-russell-cinema-code-and-image.pdf
  8. https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781838718206_A40384905/preview-9781838718206_A40384905.pdf
  9. https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99125520248206421
  10. https://www.versobooks.com/products/1402-raiding-the-icebox
  11. https://www.amazon.com/Singin-Rain-BFI-Film-Classics/dp/0851703518
  12. https://www.abebooks.com/9780851705934/Howard-Hawks-American-Artist-0851705936/plp
  13. https://www.versobooks.com/products/1815-paris-hollywood
  14. https://www.amazon.com/Autopia-Cars-Culture-Peter-Wollen/dp/1861891326
  15. https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/1893-paris-manhattan
  16. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/path-most-resistance-films-laura-mulvey-late-peter-wollen-tribute
  17. https://filmquarterly.org/2023/06/15/the-films-of-laura-mulvey-and-peter-wollen-a-conversation-with-laura-mulvey-and-oliver-fuke/
  18. https://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/laura_mulvey_and_peter_wollen/index.html
  19. https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/tilda-swinton-peter-wollen-friendships-death
  20. https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/friendship-s-death-2/
  21. https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/friendships_death
  22. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073580/fullcredits/
  23. https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/where-begin-with-michelangelo-antonioni
  24. https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/55684
  25. https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/in-memoriam-peter-wollen-professor-emeritus-of-film-television-and-digital-media
  26. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/peter-wollen-dead-author-signs-meaning-cinema-was-81-1264534/
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