{"id":170,"date":"2009-10-26T15:33:51","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T19:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/?page_id=170"},"modified":"2025-04-21T10:22:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T14:22:29","slug":"obrien-charles","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/filmstudies\/people\/obrien-charles\/","title":{"rendered":"O’Brien, Charles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Charles O\u2019Brien is available to supervise students whose research concerns the following fields: cinema and disability, film and media history, film music and sound, transnational cinema, film and media technology, and film aesthetics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His current research project, \u201cCinema and the Aesthetics of Disability,\u201d draws on both film studies and disability studies to examine the aesthetics of films featuring characters and actors with disabilities, with a focus on how disability is invoked in current cinema in ways different from in earlier films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Brien\u2019s publications include the book Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound: Transatlantic Trends<\/em> (Indiana University Press 2019), the book Cinema\u2019s Conversion to Sound: Technology and Film Style in France and the United States<\/em> (Indiana U. Press, 2005), as well as articles and book chapters on various topics, including: staging and lighting in D. W. Griffith\u2019s Biograph films; French and German film versions of Weill-Brecht\u2019s Die Dreigroschenoper<\/em>; art deco\u2019s impact on cinema; film noir\u2019s beginnings in 1930s France; Ren\u00e9 Clair\u2019s musical comedies; staging in Max Linder\u2019s short films, the film-theoretical implications of Susan Sontag\u2019s film criticism; voice-dubbing practices; film and electrification in Europe and North America prior to WWI; and films set in the French colonies. His translations include Francesco Casetti\u2019s Inside the Gaze<\/em> (1996).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since arriving at Carleton in 1994 O\u2019Brien has received a Chateaubriand Fellowship; a residential fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France; and four research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. In 2006 O\u2019Brien was appointed Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His teaching assignment for 2022-2023 includes: a second-year course on world cinema, a third-year course on cinema and disability, and the first-year Introduction to Film Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publications in print (last ten years):<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArt Deco and Sound Cinema.\u201d In Art Deco Research <\/em>Companion<\/em>. Michael Windover and Bridget Elliot, eds.. Surrey England: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecent Books on Music in French Cinema.\u201d Studies in French Cinema<\/em> (2019): 1-5. [Published online on February 11, 2020; https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/14715880.2019.1706145<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound: Transatlantic Trends<\/em>. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDubbing in the Early 1930s: An Improbable Policy.\u201d In \u201cSplendid Innovations\u201d: The Development, Reception and Preservation of Screen Translation<\/em>. Carol O\u2019Sullivan and Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Cornu, eds.. London and New York: Oxford University Press and the British Academy. 180-191.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTechnology: Plant, Imported Technology, and Film Style.\u201d In The French Cinema Book<\/em>, Revised Edition. Michael Temple and Michael Witt, eds.. London: British Film Institute, 2018. 81-88.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGriffith Goes West: The Move to California and the Style of the Biographs.\u201d In The Blackwell Companion to D. W. Griffith<\/em>. Charlie Keil, eds.. Hoboken and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2017. 150-173.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFilm Analysis and Statistics:  A Field Report.\u201d In Technology and Film Scholarship: Experience, Study, History<\/em>. Andr\u00e9 Gaudreault and Santiago Hidalgo, eds.. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 2017. 149-168.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFilm History.\u201d International Encyclopedia of the<\/em> Social and Behavioural Sciences<\/em>. London: Elsevier, 2015. 165-170.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStaging and Acting in the Griffith Biographs.\u201d In Performing New <\/em>Media 1890-1915<\/em>. Kaveh Askari et al., eds.. Eastleigh, England: John Libbey Press, 2014. 41-47.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSound-on-Disc Cinema.\u201d In Early Cinema: Critical Concepts<\/em>. Richard Abel, ed.. New York and London: Routledge, 2013. 42-51.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Exception and the Norm: Relocating Renoir\u2019s Sound and Music.\u201d In The Blackwell Companion to Jean Renoir<\/em>. Ginette Vincendeau and Alastair Phillips, eds.. Hoboken and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2013. 33-52.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cColour as Image Schema:  Technicolor Number 3 in King of Jazz.\u201d In Color and the Moving Image: History, Theory, Aesthetics, Archive<\/em>. Simon Brown, Sarah Street, and Liz Watkins, eds.. New York and London: Routledge\/American Film Institute, 2013. 37-46.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCamera Distance and Max Linder at Path\u00e9-Fr\u00e8res.\u201d Cinema & Cie<\/em>. 13, no. 21 <\/strong>(Fall 2013). 49-57.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMotion Picture Color and Path\u00e9-Fr\u00e8res: The Aesthetic Consequences of Industrialization.\u201d In The Blackwell Companion to Early Cinema, Andr\u00e9 Gaudreault, Nicolas Dulac, and Santiago Hidalgo, eds.. Hoboken and Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2012. 298-314.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEarly Film Colour: Today and Yesterday.\u201d In Beyond the Screen: <\/em>Institutions, Networks, and Publics of Early Cinema<\/em>. Marta Braun et al, eds.. Eastleigh, England: John Libbey, 2012. 195-199.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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