The 2018 Vivien Leigh afternoon at Queen Mary University of London focussed on the film The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone. Members of the Vivien Leigh Circle and the Film Studies department at QMUL gathered to listen to talks, watch the film, enjoy a Negroni or two and to take part in a raffle of Vivien Leigh related items in aid of MIND.
In the Hitchcock Cinema, Lucy Bolton introduced the afternoon’s events and talked about the 1961 film The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, which stars Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty.
The next talk was by Georgia Brown who joined us from Scotland via Skype. Her talk was called ‘Vivien Leigh’s Voice: A Quantitative Approach to Performance Analysis’ and included examples of her innovative voice analysis techniques.
The final talk was ‘Golden Dreams and Cruel Realities in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone’ by Cathy Lomax. She talked about the autobiographical nature of Tennessee Williams’ novel on which the film is based, and how Mrs Stone’s ageing and rejuvenation is shown in the mise en scene of the film.
After the screening of The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone we retired for Negronis (Mrs Stone’s favourite drink).
The afternoon ended with an auction of Vivien Leigh memorabilia, ably assisted by Vivien the puppy.
