Talk by Professor Richard Dyer: Is It 'Their Song'?

This paper by Professor Richard Dyer starts from a consideration of the trope of ‘our song’, the song, that is, that film characters feel in some way is associated with or even expresses their relationship – ‘As Time Goes By’ in Casablanca (1942) is perhaps the most famous example. It then consider how often such songs turn out to be illusory, looking especially at three relatively recent European examples, and arguing that the problem of ‘our song’ never really being ‘ours’, always escaping us, is in little the contradiction at the heart of communication.

We have a limited number of additional tickets for this keynote talk, which is part of the 2023 Irish Screen Studies seminar, hosted by the Department of Film at Trinity College Dublin, and with the support of the Trinity Long Room Hub and TCD's Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Events Fund.