Cirrus@Austlit

'Welcome to the second issue of Studies in Australasian Cinema for 2016. This issue comprises a special collection drawn and developed from papers originally presented at the 2015 XVIIth Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (FHAANZ) Conference in association with the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAANZ). Edited by Mark David Ryan and Ben Goldsmith, this issue focuses on the theme ‘Reviewing Australian Screen History’.' (Introduction)

'Alfred Rolfe was arguably the most prolific silent era Australian director. He was responsible for more than 25 feature films, encompassing the bushranger genres, early Australian war cinema and various melodramas. Many of his films were both critical and commercial successes. The only surviving footage is scenes from two of his 1915 war films. This important director has been overshadowed by his contemporaries, particularly Raymond Longford. This paper argues that Rolfe’s contribution to early Australian cinema was significant, not just in volume, but also in artistic terms, in subject matter, and in popular appeal. The centenary of Anzac is also the centenary of Australia’s first Gallipoli movie, Rolfe’s The Hero of the Dardanelles (1915), which was one of the most successful films at the box office for its time.' (Publication abstract)

'The story of the moving picture collection of the First World War held by the Australian War Memorial is a frustrating, complex and intriguing one. Charles Bean struggled from the earliest days of the war to get Australian film, shot by Australian cinematographers, into Australian hands – with limited success. Using the 1919 report Charles Bean wrote on his dealings with the War Office Cinematograph Committee (WOCC) as a framing device, this paper traces some of the paths taken by the earliest of these fragile records. By using three films as case studies, exploring the history of the WOCC and its major players and drawing on (and pulling apart) contemporary correspondence, diaries and notes a chaotic picture emerges. Though Bean himself is not without sin in the mishandling of the Australian footage, his fight for these first few films highlights the constant tension between film as a content-driven commodity and film as an archival object.'(Publication abstract)

'This paper examines the film reviews of Kenneth Slessor, an Australian poet, journalist and war correspondent best known for his contributions to Australian poetry between the two world wars. His film reviews of early Hollywood, British, and Australian sound cinema were an important part of his journalism at Smith’s Weekly from 1931 to 1940. Mostly overlooked until recently these reviews reveal a sophisticated approach towards the new (sound) cinema. The criteria he advanced for evaluating film and the range of qualities he discerned, criticised and celebrated in films were based on appreciating film as a unique artform with its own formal repertoire and modes of production. While such standpoints are now familiar in film reviewing, at the time he was writing such standpoints were just coming into being. Close attention to Slessor’s film reviewing discloses a fecund critical imagination attuned to cinema’s range. He deserves wider recognition as a distinctive voice on the cinema in general and Australian cinema in particular.' (Publication abstract)

'The five films made in Australia by Ealing Studios in the 1940s and 1950s have largely been analysed and ‘reclaimed’ (by figures like Bruce Molloy) as key works of Australian National Cinema, movies that occupy and populate a period of meagre feature film production while reworking popular genres such as the Western and the crime film. Although these films can be read symptomatically in terms of their ‘localised’ renderings of landscape, character and narrative situation, they have seldom been discussed in relation to the broader patterns of Ealing film production, the studio’s preoccupation with interiorised communities, work, Britishness and small-scale settlements on the geographic fringes of Britain and the Empire (such as Whisky Galore!), and the various other films (such as the Kenya shot and set Where No Vultures Fly and West of Zanzibar) that light upon far-flung or peripheral locations and settlements. This essay re-examines the Ealing ‘adventure’ through a transnational lens that focuses attention on the largely unacknowledged parallels and production symmetries between films such as Eureka Stockade and those that sit within the ‘mainstream’ of the studio’s output (e.g. Passport to Pimlico). It also places these five films (The Overlanders, Eureka Stockade, Bitter Springs, The Shiralee and The Siege of Pinchgut) in relation to the broader commercial fate of the studio throughout the late 1940s and 1950s.' (Publication abstract)

This paper interrogates representations of colonial authority, in particular the police force, in three films with a colonial Australian setting that were produced following the Second World War by British or Australian producers: the local production Captain Thunderbolt (1953) directed by Cecil Holmes; Jack Lee’s British adaptation of Australian literary classic Robbery Under Arms (1957) and Harry Watt’s Eureka Stockade (1949), which was the British production company Ealing Studios’ second production in Australia. I argue that the three films reflect differing approaches to understanding Australian national identity through their representations of authority, ideologically influenced by left-wing politics, the global marketplace and British imperialism. Where Captain Thunderbolt treats the colonial police and government with the sardonic irony and distance of a resistant community, both Eureka Stockade and Robbery Under Arms reinforce and justify Australia’s colonial administration. By detailing the economic, political and social contexts that contributed to these films, I demonstrate how various interest groups appropriated notions of Australian character and history to suit their ideological goals in line with Richard White’s (1992 White, Richard. 1992 arguments in ‘Inventing Australia’. Turning to history and folklore, these interests – including the Australian government, British media conglomerate the Rank Organisation and various left-wing organisations – infused the past they evoked in these films with new meanings that suited their vision of the future.' (Publication summary)

'This paper examines the rapid spread of urban film festivals in Australia from the 1980s onwards. Up to the 1980s, film festivals in Australia were limited to only a few events in the country’s capital cities. Yet, by the end of the 1990s an exponential increase in the number and diversity of events had occurred. While this rapid growth seemingly fits within existing international observations regarding the global spread of film festivals throughout this period, specific local factors, including the wider mix of film exhibition activities operating in Australia in the preceding decades, influenced how the nation’s film festivals multiplied and developed. This paper draws on significant empirical research to analyse the rapid growth of film festivals in Australia through the 1980s. In doing so, it seeks to address two goals. First, to provide more concrete evidence of the rapid global proliferation and diversification of film festivals in the 1980s through the inclusion of the Australian experience. And second, to open up a discussion around an under examined aspect the nation’s film appreciation and exhibition history, specifically that relating to film festivals and non-theatrical film exhibition.' (Publication abstract)

This paper examines key issues emerging from the July 2014 Where We Are Heading sessions conducted between the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) CEO Michael Loebenstein, industry stakeholders and members of the public seeking to engage with the future direction of the NFSA. Analysis of transcripts from these public meetings reveals that significant conceptual and programmatic gaps exist between what the NFSA has done in the past, how it ‘self-actualises’ in terms of a national collection and what it can practically and effectively achieve in the near future. These significant challenges to the historical function of the Archive occur at a time of pronounced economic austerity for public cultural institutions and expanding, digitally driven curatorial responsibilities. Tensions exist between the need for the NFSA to increase revenue while preserving the function of an open and accessible Archive. Three key areas of challenge are addressed – digitisation, funding and the need for the NFSA to connect more broadly and more deeply with Australian society. The latter area is identified as crucial as the NFSA continues to articulate and actively promote the public value of the Archive through renewed programme and outreach efforts.' (Publication abstract)