Cirrus@Austlit

'Using the Western Australian (WA) film industry as a case study, this article revisits the framework proposed by Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka in their anatomy of a film industry project. Acknowledging the power of Dermody and Jacka’s work, the article highlights a lack of detail surrounding the WA case. Drawing on the idea of an ‘imaginary’ industry as a key construct, it argues that a modified version of the framework is needed to account for the WA case, especially at the organizational level. The article proposes that the period 1969/70 to the present can be analysed in terms of three distinct eras and focuses on the first two (1969–1983; 1983–1993). It discusses the organization of film industry policy according to a logic of industry development, and a persistent tension between constructions of industry as production and culture. It gathers the extant scholarly resources for an anatomy of the WA industry (including works by Brian Shoesmith, Tom O’Regan, Tim Fetherstonhaugh, Vincent O’Donnell and others). Drawing on this writing, this article represents a belated contribution to the anatomy of a film industry project and a call to action in relation to the analysis of contemporary industry discourse in WA.'  (Publication abstract)

'At the Movies was first broadcast on the ABC on July 1 2004, with the final episode broadcast on December 9 2014. Hosted and conceived by Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, they first began presenting together on SBS’s The Movie Show on October 30 1986, inaugurating one of the most culturally significant collaborations in Australian film culture.'

'Recent years have seen a growing interest in the history of fields of study and academic disciplines. While recognizing a number of limitations, this article explores the emergence of screenwriting research in Australia. It addresses the question of what were the cultural conditions that gave rise to contemporary screenwriting research in Australia. The article discusses three key factors: firstly, long-standing policy settings around cultural identity and content in film and television; secondly, active debates around ‘screen culture’ that have given discussions of the place of culture and story special prominence and contributed to awareness of questions of cultural ‘value’, and conventional separations of production and consumption; thirdly, the rise of film studies in the 1970s, which gave ferment to research into narrative and story forms. My goal is to capture some of the contextual features that are important to an understanding of screenwriting research in this period and geography, and to suggest that screenwriting research emerged as intellectual attitude and area of interest that eventually crystallized as part of a more formalized arena of study in the later 2000s.' (Publication abstract)

'In this article I revisit the distinction between criticism and reviewing in cultural and film studies. I focus on three attempts to tackle this distinction. The first comes from Colin McArthur, who published ‘British Film Reviewing: A Complaint’ in Screen in 1985. The second is from Meaghan Morris, and her seminal 1988 article, ‘Indigestion: A Rhetoric of Reviewing’. The third is from more recent work by Tom O’Regan and Huw Walmsley-Evans, which is redefining the terms upon which we encounter the review around the concept of ‘media containers’ and aesthetics.  Through discussion of these three attempts I examine the extent to which reviewing is constructed as a form of media practice in its own right.' (Publication abstract)

'Drawing on the experience of researching Indigenous screenwriting, as well as the work of Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton, this article seeks to reflect on the universalism that underpins certain forms of screenwriting criticism. I highlight existing arguments focused on cultural diversity, draw on linguistic and anthropological perspectives (especially the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), and examine issues of universalism and cultural context. I argue that universal forms of story and storytelling need to be approached more critically in screenwriting research. Without a critical attention to universalism radical differences in the way different cultures construct story, and the way different cultures explore different story worlds, will not be adequately recognized.' (Publication abstract)