Pop Stars on Film

Kirsty Fairclough is Professor of Screen Studies and Head of Research and Innovation at the School of Digital Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She is the co-editor of Prince and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury), The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop, The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment (Bloomsbury), The Legacy of Mad Men: Cultural History, Intermediality and American Television. , Music/Video: Forms, Aesthetics, Media (Bloomsbury) and author of the forthcoming Beyoncé: Celebrity Feminism and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury). She is the curator of Sound and Vision: Pop Stars on Film and In Her View: Women Documentary Filmmakers film seasons at HOME, Manchester and Chair of Manchester Jazz Festival.Jason Wood is Executive Director of Public Programmes and Audiences at the British Film Institute. Having worked in the independent British film industry for over 25 years, he is also a filmmaker, whose last work, the co-directed Always (Crashing) screened at numerous international festivals. A contributor to The Wire, Wood has also written for The Economist, Time Out, Sight and Sound, Little White Lies (and others), Wood is also the author of several books, including Nick Broomfield (2005) and The Faber Book of Contemporary Mexican Cinema (2nd edition, 2021).

Pop stars appearing in movies will frequently draw on their own, slightly unreal, public persona. But there is also dandyism, naivety and shape-shifting at play when a pop star switches from one discipline to the other, things that stage actors can’t necessarily bring to film. Here is a book that gives equal weight to David Bowie’s careers as musician and actor, and is all the more readable and fascinating for it.

• AcknowledgementsForewordNotes on contributorsIntroductionKirsty Fairclough and Jason Wood1 The boy can’t help it: Little Richard’s disruption and re-construction of black male screen performativityTom Attah2 There Always Gonna Be Queens on The Rag: Madonna and Queer IntertextualitySarah Perks3 Prince’s Fashion During the Batman Era: Symbols, Silhouettes, and the Return of PurpleKaren Turman4 Meet the Long-Lost Phillip Jefferies’: The Elusive Cinema of David BowieJames King5 Where the popular meets the esoteric: Videodrome and Holy MotorsEllen Smith6 Translating Personas: French Singers on FilmAndrew Willis7 Adam Ant, John Lydon, Jordan: Punk Stars on FilmRachel Hayward8 From the Street to the Dancefloor: Political Imaginings of the Pop Star in Popular Indian CinemaOmar Ahmed9 ...singing “Trouble of the World” in Imitation of LifeBenjamin Halligan10 Cinema, Jazz, and RepresentationDaniel Graham11 Ryuichi Sakamoto: Behind the MaskJason Wood12 Reframing Time and Space in Dogs in SpaceKristy Matheson