Concerned with the period 1970-1987; Dedicated to Bill Bonney, d.1985.

Situates Australian cinema in its historical and cultural perspective, offering detailed critiques of key films from 1970 onwards, and using them to illustrate the recent theories on the cinema industries.

From The Story of the Kelly Gang in 1906 to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Australia and New Zealand have made a unique impact on international cinema. This book celebrates the commercially successful narrative feature films produced by these cultures as well as key documentaries, shorts, and independent films. It also invokes issues involving national identity, race, history, and the ability of two small film cultures to survive the economic and cultural threat of Hollywood. Chapters on well known films and directors, such as The Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir, 1982), The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993), Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001), and Rabbit Proof Fence (Philip Noyce, 2002), are included with less popular but equally important films and filmmakers, such as Jedda (Charles Chauvel, 1955), They're a Weird Mob (Michael Powell, 1966), Vigil (Vincent Ward, 1984), and The Goddess of 1967 (Clara Law, 2000).

Kommentierte Bibliografie. Sie gibt Wissenschaftlern, Studierenden und Journalisten zuverlässig Auskunft über rund 6000 internationale Veröffentlichungen zum Thema Film und Medien. Die vorgestellten Rubriken reichen von Nachschlagewerk über Filmgeschichte bis hin zu Fernsehen, Video, Multimedia.

Publisher Description

Fred Schepisi is one of the crucial names associated with the revival of the Australian film industry in the 1970s. The Films of Fred Schepisi traces the lead-up to his critical successes in feature filmmaking, via his earlier award-winning success as a producer in advertising commercials in the 1960s and the setting up of his own company. Unlike some directors, he derived from this experience a sure sense of the commercial aspects of filmmaking, as well as its aesthetic considerations. The volume also considers stories of his early education in a Catholic seminary, which he drew on in his semiautobiographical film, The Devil’s Playground, the success of which launched him as an exciting new feature director. The volume expands on Schepisi’s success story to chart his development as a director in demand in other countries, notably in the US and the UK, as well as continuing to make major films in Australia. Brian McFarlane argues that Schepisi’s career is symptomatic of Australian directors who have made their presences felt on the international stage. Whereas other key directors of the Australian film revival, such as Peter Weir and Bruce Beresford, have been the subject of book-length critical studies, Schepisi’s career has not to-date been so explored. McFarlane takes a critical account of Schepisi’s film output—including such standouts as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Plenty, Roxanne, Six Degrees of Separation, Mr. Baseball, and Last Orders—and he augments analysis with interviews with the director. By discussing the production histories and both critical and popular receptions, McFarlane’s study shines a new light on Schepisi’s work and his rise to prominence in the global film industry.

The book reads the Gothic characteristics of Australian cinema within their national, cultural context. The book relates the key motifs and concerns of Gothic literature to the styles, narratives and significance of Australian films. The book places examples of Australian Gothic film within the Australian filmmaking and film criticism, and relates these to the wider trends of international horror film.

This study is a collection of critical and scholarly analyses of the organisation of the Australian Film Industry since 1990. Particular emphasis is put on globalisation, authorship, national narrative and film aesthetics.

This edited collection assesses the complex historical and contemporary relationships between US and Australian cinema by tapping directly into discussions of national cinema, transnationalism and global Hollywood. While most equivalent studies aim to define national cinema as independent from or in competition with Hollywood, this collection explores a more porous set of relationships through the varied production, distribution and exhibition associations between Australia and the US. To explore this idea, the book investigates the influence that Australia has had on US cinema through the exportation of its stars, directors and other production personnel to Hollywood, while also charting the sustained influence of US cinema on Australia over the last hundred years. It takes two key points in time—the 1920s and 1930s and the last twenty years—to explore how particular patterns of localism, nationalism, colonialism, transnationalism and globalisation have shaped its course over the last century. The contributors re-examine the concept and definition of Australian cinema in regard to a range of local, international and global practices and trends that blur neat categorisations of national cinema. Although this concentration on US production, or influence, is particularly acute in relation to developments such as the opening of international film studios in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and the Gold Coast over the last thirty years, the book also examines a range of Hollywood financed and/or conceived films shot in Australia since the 1920s.

The Routledge Companion to World Cinema explores and examines a global range of films and filmmakers, their movements and audiences, comparing their cultural, technological and political dynamics, identifying the impulses that constantly reshape the form and function of the cinemas of the world. Each of the forty chapters provides a survey of a topic, explaining why the issue or area is important, and critically discussing the leading views in the area. Designed as a dynamic forum for forty-three world-leading scholars, this companion contains significant expertise and insight and is dedicated to challenging complacent views of hegemonic film cultures and replacing outmoded ideas about production, distribution and reception. It offers both a survey and an investigation into the condition and activity of contemporary filmmaking worldwide, often challenging long-standing categories and weighted—often politically motivated—value judgements, thereby grounding and aligning the reader in an activity of remapping which is designed to prompt rethinking.