I completed an MPhil and a PhD in Film and Screen Studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge, before beginning a Junior Research Fellowship at Clare College. My PhD research looked at the human voice in Italian giallo cinema (a sleazy, ‘trashy’ hybrid of the thriller and the horror film made in the 1960s and ‘70s). I was particularly interested in how these films’ voice tracks bound their auditory aesthetics to both the commercial imperatives of the post-war Italian film industry and, beyond that, to wider Italian and European socio-cultural issues. My post-doctoral research is currently investigating the subtle but significant role played by air in film aesthetics.
Publications:
Pollard, Damien, ‘Notturno: An Atmospheric Aesthetic’, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies Special Issue on Gianfranco Rosi (forthcoming, 2021).
Pollard, Damien, ‘Radio Alice and Italy’s Movement of 1977: Polyvocality, Sonority and Space’, Sound Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 7:2 (2021), pp. 151-172. https://doi.org/10.1080/20551940.2020.1759979
Pollard, Damien, ‘Coherently Incoherent? Dario Argento’s Phenomena and the Influence of the Music Video’, L’avventura: International Journal of Italian Film and Media Landscapes 6:2 (2020), pp. 193–206.
Pollard, Damien, ‘“Can’t You Hear Me?” Ideologies of the Voice in Giallo Cinema’, Screen 61:3 (2020), pp. 385–402. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjaa031
Pollard, Damien, ‘“I’m Blind, Not Deaf!”: Hegemonic Soundscapes and Resistant Hearing in Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Inferno’, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies 7:1 (2019), pp. 55–73. https://doi.org/10.1386/jicms.7.1.55_1
