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Images in Prose and Film: Modernist Treatments of Gender

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Images in Prose and Film: Modernist Treatments of Gender Images in Prose and Film: Modernist treatments of gender, education and early 20th century culture in Bryher’s Close Up essays, her volume Film Problems of Soviet Russia (1929), and her autobiographical fiction Zlatina Emilova Nikolova Royal Holloway, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) September 2018 1 Declaration of Authorship The title page should be followed by a signed declaration that the work presented in the thesis is the candidate’s own. Please note that there is no set wording for this but an example is provided below: Declaration of Authorship I …Zlatina Emilova Nikolova…………………. (please insert name) hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: ______________________ Date: ________________________ 2 This thesis explores the thematic and stylistic patterns across the previously unexplored fiction and non-fiction work of the modernist author Bryher. More precisely, this study focuses on Bryher's three autobiographical novels: Development (1920), Two Selves (1923) and West (1925), and the film criticism she published in the film journal Close Up (1927-1933) and her volume Film Problems of Soviet Russia (1929). Influenced by her experiences as a young woman at the turn of the twentieth century and World War I, Bryher formulated strong opinions on women's social status, education, and patriarchal society. These opinions and the style of prose that articulated these ideas in her novels translated into her film criticism and informed the author's understanding of the film medium and film art throughout the 1920s and 1930s. By placing Bryher's texts in the context of the modernist writing produced by others in her close circle, this thesis compares her work to the novels and film essays published by the Imagist poet H.D. and the novelist Dorothy Richardson. Thus, it highlights Bryher's crucial role as an editor of the film journal Close Up and challenges previous explorations' tendency to attach her ideas to the opinions about film articulated by other Close Up critics, such as her long-term companion H.D. or Close Up's chief editor, the Scottish artist Kenneth Macpherson. Finally, this thesis's comparison between Bryher's novels and her film criticism traces the interpretation of these themes and the style of the author's prose across different genres and contexts. The variety of the texts' topics and registers expands Bryher's commentary of early twentieth-century society to early film culture and establishes her as a key figure of early British film criticism. 3 Contents 1. Introduction 6 • Bryher and Nancy: Style and Thematic Concerns in Bryher’s autobiographical prose 7 • Cinema for the Masses: Social Commentary and International Cinema in Bryher’s film texts 13 • Beginning to Understand Bryher: This Thesis’s Approach to Bryher’s Modernist Texts 21 2. The POOL Group: A literature review of existing discourses on Bryher’s position in the POOL Group and Close Up, and her fiction prose 26 • Bryher and H.D.: Prose, Poetry and Partnership 26 • Bryher and Dorothy Richardson: An Enduring Friendship 36 • Bryher’s Film Texts: Close Up and Film Problems of Soviet Russia in the context of film literature of the early twentieth century 43 3. Bryher’s Autobiographical Novels: Discourses on Education and Social Critique 57 • Nancy and Bryher: The Two Selves of Bryher’s Autobiographical Prose 59 • Women’s development: Young Women’s Education and Gender Stereotypes of the early twentieth century 83 • Hermione and Nancy: Modernist Femininity in Bryher’s and H.D.’s Autobiographical Novels 100 4. A Sponsor, Editor, and Critic: Bryher and Close Up 111 • Bryher’s role in Close Up: Sponsor, Editor, and Contributor 113 • Film in Education: Teaching Methodologies in Bryher’s Close Up articles 4 124 • Bryher, H.D., and Dorothy Richardson 131 5. International Films: Bryher on German Film, Hollywood, and British cinema 153 • German Film: The Foundation of Bryher’s film criticism 155 • Hollywood: An Industry of Conventions 170 • British cinema: A Discussion on Censorship, Film Production, and Spectatorship 182 6. Film Problems of Soviet Russia: Bryher’s Approach to Film Literature 200 • Film Problems of Soviet Russia: A Manual on Soviet Film 203 • The Directors of Film Problems of Soviet Russia: Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Kuleshov and Room 216 • Film’s Problems: Social Dynamics, Education, and Soviet Russia’s Film Industry 236 7. Conclusion: Bryher after Close Up 250 8. Bibliography 286 5 CHAPTER 1 Introduction This thesis explores the thematic and stylistic patterns that inform the autobiographical prose and film criticism of the British modernist writer Bryher (1894-1983). The following thesis examines Bryher’s first three novels: Development (1920), Two Selves (1923) and West (1925), and compares them to her articles published in the journal Close Up (1927-1933), and her volume Film Problems of Soviet Russia (1929). Its textual analysis focuses on the ways the novels’ themes are shaped by Bryher’s personal experiences in the 1910s and World War I, and connects them to the author’s subsequent social commentary on twentieth-century life, articulated through her prosopopoeial alter-ego Nancy. The novels’ dominant themes, such as Bryher’s opinions on education and women’s place in society, translate into her film texts in the 1920s and 1930s. Her Close Up articles and her volume on Soviet montage films, Film Problems of Soviet Russia, posit that film is not only an innovative art form but also a resolution to the artistic and social issues the author identifies in her three novels. Despite her role in founding the journal and her article contributions, Bryher’s involvement with Close Up has largely remained over-looked in scholarly explorations of the POOL Group. Instead, studies of POOL’s activities privilege other contributors, such as the Imagist poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961) or the novelist Dorothy Richardson (1873-1957). This thesis’s engagement with Bryher’s texts and position in the POOL Group is informed by three main aims: it establishes Bryher’s understanding of the film medium and film art by tracing the stylistic and thematic parallels between her autobiographical novels and her film texts; it defines her role as a sponsor and editor of Close Up and distinguishes her contribution to the journal’s engagement with film art in the context of Close Up’s other women critics, mainly H.D. and Dorothy Richardson; and it indicates how the thematic heterogeneity of her early fiction and non-fiction prose 6 defines her later works and foregrounds her as a commentator of twentieth-century life and culture. Bryher and Nancy: Style and Thematic Concerns in Bryher’s autobiographical prose Bryher was born in 1894 as Annie Winifred Ellerman, daughter of the wealthy shipping magnate and investor in The Times, Sir John Ellerman (1862-1933), and his wife Hannah Glover. The author’s first memoir, The Heart to Artemis (1963), describes Bryher’s childhood as a period of isolation from public life in the Ellerman family home, an environment that shaped Bryher’s early opinions on education and women’s limited role in society.1 In the 1910s the young author chose the pseudonym ‘Bryher’ after one of the Scilly Isles in Cornwall.2 She never referred to the name ‘Bryher’ as a pseudonym and adopted it as her legal name by deed poll in 1950s.3 Her new name distanced her from her family’s influence and wealth, and signalled her departure from the comforts of the Ellermans’ upper-class milieu. The name ‘Bryher’ further helped shape the author’s androgynous identity and established the figure who later became known for her patronage of numerous modernist authors and artists, several little presses, and other publications. The journey of the author’s self-discovery was later fictionalised in her three autobiographical novels and her protagonist Nancy, as her texts served as sites of identity projection. Scholarly investigations of the modernist circles recognise Bryher as the close companion of the American Imagist poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961), and the sponsor of little presses including the Paris-based Contact Press, POOL Reflections in Switzerland, and the Brendin Company, as well as the film company POOL Productions. Bryher’s patronage of such enterprises ensured platforms for the works of other modernists apart from H.D. Financed 1 Bryher, The Heart to Artemis (London: Collins, 1963) 7-43. 2 Ibid. 193 3 Ibid. 193 7 by Bryher, the Contact Press published the novels of her first husband, Robert McAlmon (1895-1956). Bryher’s publishing activities also secured exposure for the film essays of the novelist Dorothy Richardson, the film critic and editor of Life and Letters To-Day, Robert Herring, (1903-975), the filmmaker Oswell Blakeston (1907-1985) and Bryher’s second husband, the Scottish artist Kenneth Macpherson (1902-1971). A dedicated patron of the work of others, Bryher was also a modernist author and film critic in her own right. Her body of work includes fifteen novels, two volumes of memoirs, one volume of film criticism, two collections of poetry, over twenty articles published in Close Up, and numerous shorter pieces, as well as international publications on film. She also sponsored the POOL Group’s efforts in filmmaking, which resulted in Macpherson’s films Monkey’s Moon (1927), Wing Beat (1928), Foothills (1928), and the only POOL film that remains in full, the feature-length Borderline (1930), where Bryher appears as the manageress of the hotel bar. However, this thesis concentrates only on Bryher’s fiction and non-fiction prose of the 1920s and the early 1930s. Her novels’ autobiographical roots indicate the origins of the author’s opinions about twentieth-century culture that dominate the themes and style of her film criticism and later fiction prose.
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