About

José Arroyo studied Economics at McGill University, Film Studies at the University of East Anglia and Communications at Simon Fraser University. He is co-founder of The Montreal Mirror and was awarded the AQEC-Oliveri Prize for Best Text Written on Film in 1989 for ‘John Grierson and the War for Men’s Minds’. He has been a columnist on gay culture for Angles in Vancouver and ‘The Wide Lens’ column for The Conversation. He has contributed film criticism to a range of media outlets including Sight and Sound magazine, Front Row on Radio 4, The Cinema Show/ The DVD Collection for BBC TV and many others. José has taught Film Studies at a variety of places, including Concordia University in Montreal, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Ramon Llull University in Barcelona and EICTV in Cuba. He currently blogs on film at notesonfilm1.com.

Research interests

I have a continuing interest in film aesthetics, film criticism, queer cinema and the films of Pedro Almodóvar. I have recently been blogging rather insistently on the films of Claude Sautet, Satjayit Ray, Lino Ventura, Romy Schneider and a series of recent films that seem to mourn the idea of America (The Place Beyond the Pines, Winter’s Bone, Killing Them Softly).

Selected publications

Books

Articles

• ‘Pedro Almodóvar’ in Yvonne Tasker (ed.) Fifty Contemporary Film Directors (London: Routledge, 2010).
• ‘Kiss kiss bang bang’ in Film/ Literature/ Heritage, Ginette Vincendeau (ed.) London: BFI, 2001).
• Film Studies’ in Andy Medhurst and Sally Munt (eds.) Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Critical Introduction (London: Cassell, 1997).
• ‘Death, Desire and Identity: The Political Unconscious of New Queer Cinema’ in Joseph Wilson and Angelia R. Wilson eds. Activating Theory (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1993).
• ‘Bordwell Considered: Cognitivism, Colonialism and Canadian Cinematic Culture', Cineaction, no. 28, Spring 1992.

Teaching and supervision

I teach modules on Film Aesthetics, Film Criticism, the work of Pedro Almodóvar and a module on practical criticism whose aim is to get students to make criticism, in prose and in video essay form, in forms appropriate to the digital and inter-connected world we live in. I am currently co-supervising a PhD on film adaptations of superhero comics and have recently supervised post-graduate dissertations on Javier Bardem’s star persona, post-9/11 American Cinema, Martin Scorcese, American Action Cinema and brutalism in the work of Catherine Breillat.

Administrative roles

• MA Admissions Tutor
• Undergraduate Admissions Tutor