Edinburgh Film Seminar: Dr Matthew Asprey Gear

About the seminar 

Book Launch and Screening of Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975)

By Dr Matthew Asprey Gear...

The Edinburgh Film Seminar will screen Arthur Penn's private detective film Night Moves (1975) to coincide with the publication of a new book about the film by Matthew Asprey Gear.

Night Moves is one of the great crime films of the 1970s. Alongside Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) and Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), it helped reinvent and redeem the private detective genre, offering deep and disturbing insight into the moral ambiguities of the Watergate era. Arthur Penn, one of the most prominent figures in the New Hollywood era, was also the director of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Little Big Man (1970), and The Missouri Breaks (1976). 

The story: When private detective Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) discovers his wife’s infidelity, his life spins into crisis. Distracting himself with work, he takes a new case: to locate a runaway teenage girl (Melanie Griffith). The investigation takes him from the mean streets of Los Angeles to the sultry Florida Keys. Nothing is as it seems.

Following the screening, there will be a discussion of the film and the new book Moseby Confidential: Arthur Penn's Night Moves and the Rise of Neo-Noir (Jorvik Press) which tells the story behind the Night Moves, detailing the fraught collaboration between Arthur Penn and Scottish scriptwriter Alan Sharp.

Matthew Asprey Gear will introduce the film, which will then be followed by a discussion with Dr Jonny Murray (Edinburgh College of Art). 

About the speaker 

Matthew Asprey Gear is the author of At the End of the Street in the Shadow: Orson Welles and the City. His writings on film and literature have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Senses of Cinema, and Bright Lights Film Journal, and his fiction in many publications, including Crime Factory. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Are you interested in studying film?

Home to a renowned arts scene and the longest continuously running film festival, the Edinburgh Internatonal Film Festival, the city offers excellent art house cinemas, galleries, theatres, a vibrant film culture and many job opportunities. The academic staff in Film Studies are published researchers with a focus on film theory, film-philosophy and national cinemas, while Film, Exhibition and Curation staff combine critical expertise with extensive experience in curating and making film. We offer one year taught Masters degrees in either Film Studies or in Film, Exhibition and Curation. The MSc in Film Studies is designed for students particularly interested in theory, film-philosophy and art house cinema, while the MSc in Film, Exhibition and Curation combines critical and project based approaches to screening film and developing audiences.

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