Laurent Shervington Laurent Shervington i(24296185 works by)
Gender: Male
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1 Popular Modernism, Neoliberalism and Nationalism in the Australian New Wave : The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) and Gallipoli (1981) Grace Brooks , Laurent Shervington , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 48 no. 3 2024; (p. 335-348)

'Dominant narratives of the Australian New Wave tend to frame the efflorescence of national filmmaking in the 1970s through the lens of Gough Whitlam’s brand of cultural nationalism. The narrative usually runs as follows: state-funded films tended to favour a conservative, genteel and respectable aesthetic that came to be known as the “Australian Film Commission genre”. This article uses Mark Fisher’s concept of “popular modernism” to challenge this dominant account of the Australian New Wave first put forth by Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka, outlining the ways in which social democracy and state funding provided the conditions that allowed filmmakers to produce radical films that were anti-nationalist in character. As we will argue, when national film production deviated from this configuration and became circumscribed by neoliberal restructuring and economic rationalism in the 1980s, the New Wave took on an increasingly nationalist impulse. The article will trace this trajectory through a narrative analysis of two films from lauded Australian director Peter Weir: The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) and Gallipoli (1981).'  (Introduction)
1 History, Recognition, and the Trauma of Indigenous Enjoyment in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith Laurent Shervington , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 34 no. 2 2020; (p. 296-312) 'The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), directed by Fred Schepisi, is an Australian New Wave film about a young Indigenous Australian man’s struggle for recognition in pre-federation Australia, a futile pursuit that leads him to commit acts of violence against his colonial oppressors, an event based on the 1900 Breelong murders. It is this element of violence, in particular, the first act against the Newby family, that emerges as a paradoxical element that has troubled many critics of the film. Several immediate local reviewers of the film specifically addressed this aspect, claiming that the violent act “unbalances” the film (Jennings 26) and feels “overprepared and under-defined” (Connolly, qtd. in Donnar) and that otherwise “there seems insufficient reason” for it (Coster, qtd. in Donnar). The film’s violence also led to difficulties in its international marketing, with its inclusion in the United Kingdom’s “Section 3 Video Nasties” list of VHS films liable to be seized and confiscated, as well as having to be reedited in order to be released in the United States.' (Introduction)
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