Dr Sheldon Hall BA, PhD

There have been a number of recurrent themes in my research output to date: the history of the Hollywood film industry, particularly in the postwar era; the phenomenon of the ‘blockbuster’; widescreen technologies and aesthetics; the historical epic and the ‘heritage’ film; the British cinema and British film criticism; film distribution, exhibition and promotion as industrial practices, including the programming of cinema films on television; and the complex relationships between cinema as an industry and film as an aesthetic form. 

While all these areas are distinct and specific, there are also significant links among them; my research on the film Zulu (1964), for example, combines them all in varying degrees.

Specialist areas of interest

American, British and international film history
Film criticism, textual analysis and aesthetics
Widescreen cinema
Film distribution and exhibition
Films on television

Department of Humanities

Social Sciences and Arts

I am currently writing a monograph, Armchair Cinema: Feature Films on British Television, and developing an online database of films shown on British television from 1936 to 2016.

Film Studies / Stage and Screen

BA Film Studies, BA Film and Screenwriting

Epics, Spectacles and Blockbusters; Film Studies Dissertation; Hollywood Cinema; Introduction to Film Analysis; Professional Film Writing; Studying Film History

• Humanities Research Centre , Communication and Computing Research Centre
• Culture and Creativity Research Institute

Feature films on British television

British Film Institute

Journal articles

Hall, S. (2018). Going to the Gaumont. Picture House, (42), 50-67. http://cinema-theatre.org.uk/publishing/picture-house/

Hall, S. (2014). African adventures : Film Finances Ltd and actor-producers on safari. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 34 (4), 546-567. http://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2014.952101

Hall, S. (2013). Jerry Pickman: “The Picture Worked.” Reminiscences of a Hollywood publicist. InMedia, 2013 (3). http://inmedia.revues.org/606

Hall, S. (2012). Carry On, Cowboy: roast beef Westerns. Iluminace: Journal of Film History, Theory, and Aesthetics, 24 (3), 102. http://www.iluminace.cz/index.php/en/about-iluminace

Hall, S. (2004). Dial M for murder. Film History: An International Journal, 16 (3), 243-255. http://doi.org/10.2979/FIL.2004.16.3.243

Hall, S. (2002). Selling religion: How to market a Biblical epic. Film History: An International Journal, 14 (2), 170-185. http://doi.org/10.2979/FIL.2002.14.2.170

Conference papers

Hall, S. (2014). Sex, spies and Shirley Temple : feature films on British television. In Film History seminars, Institute of Historical Research, 23 October 2014. http://www.history.ac.uk/events/browse/17024

Hall, S. (2014). African adventures : Film Finances Ltd. and actor-producers on safari. In Film and History seminar series, Centre for World Cinemas, 13 March 2014. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/events/event/2170/african_adventures_film_finances_and_actor-producers_on_safari

Hall, S. (2012). Channel Four and the rediscovery of old movies on television. In Channel Four and UK Film Culture, BFI Southbank, 1 November 2012 - 2 November 2012. http://www.c4film.co.uk/conference-2012/schedule

Hall, S. (2011). Pass the ammunition : a short etymology of "Blockbuster". In Rethinking Epic, University of Lincoln, 1 July 2011.

Hall, S. (2010). Streamlining the roadshow : the distribution and exhibition of "Gone with the Wind". In Film History Seminars, Institute of Historical Research, 28 January 2010. http://www.history.ac.uk/events/browse/6192

Book chapters

Hall, S. (2020). The tramp, the dictator and the knight: United Artists and the roadshowing of prestige pictures in the 1930s and 1940s. In Kramer, P., Needham, G., Tzioumakis, Y., & Balio, T. (Eds.) United Artists. (pp. 75-93). Abingdon: Routledge: https://www.routledge.com/United-Artists/Kramer-Needham-Tzioumakis-Balio/p/book/9780367179007

Hall, S. (2017). Good of its kind? British film journalism. In Hunter, I.Q., Porter, L., & Smith, J. (Eds.) The Routledge History of British Cinema. (pp. 271-281). London: Routledge: http://doi.org/10.4324/9781315392189

Hall, S. (2015). Monkey feathers: Defending zulu (1964). In British Historical Cinema. (pp. 110-128). http://doi.org/10.4324/9781315011424-14

Hall, S. (2014). The wrong sort of cinema : refashioning the heritage film debate. In Murphy, R. (Ed.) British Cinema. (pp. 46-56). London: Routledge

Hall, S. (2014). Green, Nigel McGown (1924–1972). In Curthoys, M. (Ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press: doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94147

Hall, S. (2014). Pass the ammunition : a short etymology of “Blockbuster". In Elliott, A.B.R. (Ed.) The Return of the Epic Film. (pp. 147-166). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press: http://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748684021.003.0009

Hall, S. (2012). Ozoners, roadshows and blitz exhibitionism: postwar developments in distribution and exhibition. In Neale, S. (Ed.) The classical Hollywood reader. (pp. 343-354). London and New York: Routledge

Hall, S. (2010). Alternative versions in the early years of CinemaScope. In Belton, J., Hall, S., & Neale, S. (Eds.) Widescreen worldwide. (pp. 113-131). New Barnet, Herts: John Libbey Publishing

Hall, S. (2009). The wrong sort of cinema : refashioning the heritage film debate. In Murphy, R. (Ed.) The British cinema book, 3rd ed. (pp. 46-56). Basingstoke: BFI/Palgrave Macmillan

Hall, S. (2008). Under siege : the double rape of Straw Dogs. In Shail, R. (Ed.) Seventies British cinema. (pp. 129-138). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Hall, S. (n.d.). Unsworth, Geoffrey Gilyard (1914-1978). In Goldman, L. (Ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/93321

Books

Hall, S. (2014). Zulu : with some guts behind it (expanded and revised 50th anniversary edition). Tomahawk Press.

Hall, S., & Neale, S. (2010). Epics, spectacles and blockbusters : a Hollywood history. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press.

Belton, J., Hall, S., & Neale, S. (2010). Widescreen worldwide. New Barnet: John Libbey Publishing.

Belton, J., Hall, S., & Neale, S. (2010). Widescreen worldwide. New Barnet: John Libbey Publishing.

Theses / Dissertations

Dixon, E.E. (2017). Done to death? Re-evaluating narrative construction in slasher sequels. (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Hall, S., & O'Brien, S.

Other publications

Hall, S. (2011). Blockbusters. New York: Oxford University Press: http://aboutobo.com/cinema-and-media-studies/