Dr Pete Falconer
BA(Warw.), MA(Warw.), PHD(Warw.)
Expertise
My main areas of expertise are popular film genres, Hollywood cinema, film criticism, and film and television history.
Current positions
Senior Lecturer in Film and Television
Department of Film and Television
Contact
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Biography
I did my undergraduate and postgraduate study in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. I completed my PhD in 2011; my thesis title was ‘Melancholy in Hollywood Westerns, 1939-1962’. I joined the University of Bristol as a Lecturer in Film in 2012 and became a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television in 2020.
Research interests
My research interests revolve around the forms and genres of popular cinema. My first book, The Afterlife of the Hollywood Western, considered the period since the Western genre ceased to be a regular feature of mainstream American filmmaking and the implications of this changed context for what remains of the Western. In this book, I developed some of my recurring interests, including intertextuality and rhetoric in genre movies.
I am currently developing a research project on horror movies and film criticism. This project will extend some of the concerns from my work on Westerns (for example, rhetoric and genre) while moving more explicitly into issues of aesthetic evaluation.
I am also interested in other popular film genres, Hollywood cinema more broadly, film criticism, film music, popular music, film violence and issues relating to film censorship
Projects and supervisions
Thesis supervisions
In pursuit of collective laughter
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
13/06/2024Hybrid horror from Australia
Reappraising Cult Horror Films
Keynote: ‘The importance of fiction, or, To avoid fainting keep repeating, “It’s only a movie…”’
Being in a horror movie
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
The Afterlife of the Hollywood Western
The Afterlife of the Hollywood Western
Rio Bravo
Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism
Teaching
I have taught extensively on Bristol’s undergraduate and MA programmes in Film and Television.
Like my research, much of my teaching is based around Hollywood and other popular cinemas. This includes topics relating to popular genres (most obviously on the second-year unit Film Genre) but also, more broadly, different perspectives on film and television history.
Across my teaching, I emphasise the importance of detailed critical discussion. Popular culture, including film, is still often dismissed or oversimplified; I want to help my students to recognise its complexities.