Gallery Talk: Writer Inspired By Silent Film

May 11, 2011 - PRLog -- From 1pm, A.J. Bilton will be looking back some of silent film’s greatest stars including Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and discussing how his fiction writing has been inspired by his love of the genre.  

The talk will also be accompanied by a screening one of Buster Keaton's best short films, One Week.

The Sleepwalkers Ball is made up of four inter-connected stories, all set in the same strangely black and white Scottish town. These stories gradually link up to tell a tragic-comic tale of lost love and the perils of dreaming – or, in fact, the perils of sleepwalking.

A.J. Bilton said, “The grey setting of the Scottish town made me think of it as a book in black and white, and from there it just seemed a short hop to recasting the book as a sort of silent film.

“The cartoon-like or grotesque characters, the dreamlike apparitions and sudden shifts in time and space, the way in which it occupied a strange sort of space between comedy and terror – all these took me back to the silent movies I'd loved as a kid.”

The Sleepwalkers' Ball was published by Alcemi, in 2009. The author has recently completed his second novel and also a book on silent film comedy.

A.J. Bilton currently teaches Creative Writing and American Studies and has been lecturing at Swansea University since 1997.

The talk is part of the gallery’s series of free lunchtime events, which have previously included artist talks and live music.

For more information on events and workshops, call 01792 516900 or visit www.glynnviviangallery.org

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