Stephen Gaunson Stephen Gaunson i(A113167 works by)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at 30 : More Important, Enjoyable and Vital Than Ever Stephen Gaunson , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 5 September 2024;

'The lavender painted bus named “Priscilla” continues to pick up new fans while never going out of favour with its legion of original devotees, 30 years after its release.' 

1 Critical Incident : New Series Set in Western Sydney Examines the Role of Policing in Diverse Communities – with Mixed Results Stephen Gaunson , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 12 August 2024;

— Review of Critical Incident Sarah Bassiuoni , Hannah Fitzpatrick , Natasha Henry , Ruth Underwood , 2024 series - publisher film/TV

'The new Stan Original Australian crime series, Critical Incident, joins a long and impressive list of local crime dramas from streaming platforms, including Scrublands (2023) and Binge’s recent release High Country.'

1 Before Dawn : Young Aussie Director’s New Film Is a Sombre Recount of the Anzacs’ Sacrifice Stephen Gaunson , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 5 April 2024;

— Review of Before Dawn Jordon Prince-Wright , Jarrad Russell , 2024 single work film/TV

'Since Australia first began producing feature films, it has returned time and again to the subject of the first world war. Before Dawn, out in cinemas today, is the latest in this long line of productions.'

1 Before Dawn : 19-year-old Director’s New Film Is a Sombre Recount of the ANZACs’ Sacrifice Stephen Gaunson , 2024 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 April 2024;
1 Led by Leah Purcell’s Captivating Performance, High Country Delivers Fresh Take on Australian Rural Noir Stephen Gaunson , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 19 March 2024;

— Review of High Country Beck Cole , Marcia Gardner , John Ridley , 2024 series - publisher film/TV

'“If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime series High Country.' 

1 Classic Aussie Cinema and New Twists on Old Classics : Our Picks of December Streaming Ari Mattes , Emma Maguire , Erin Harrington , Lisa French , Megan Nash , Stephen Gaunson , Stuart Richards , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 4 December 2023;

— Review of Shame Beverly Blankenship , Michael Brindley , 1988 single work film/TV ; Love Serenade Shirley Barrett , 1996 single work film/TV ; Australia Baz Luhrmann , Stuart Beattie , Ronald Harwood , Richard Flanagan , 2008 single work film/TV
1 Scrublands : Not a Whodunit but a ‘howcatchem’, a New Suspenseful Aussie Inversion of the Genre Stephen Gaunson , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 16 November 2023;

— Review of Scrublands Chris Hammer , Timothy Lee , Kelsey Munro , Felicity Packard , Jock Serong , 2023 series - publisher film/TV
1 The Woman Suffers : South Australia’s Greatest Film Production Stephen Gaunson , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , November no. 107 2023;

'Having previously collaborated on twelve low-budget (short and feature) films together, by 1917 Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell were now wanting to work on larger scale feature productions. Support for this ambition came from Adelaide’s newly formed Southern Cross Feature Film Company, with their own aspiration to produce five dramas and three comedies within the first 12 months. The first of these productions would be The Woman Suffers (1918), and Southern Cross would continue to produce Longford’s great run of feature productions with Lyell including The Sentimental Bloke (1919), Ginger Mick (1920), On Our Selection (1920), Rudd’s New Selection (1921) and The Blue Mountains Mystery (1921), until 1923 when Longford and Lyell broke ties to form their own company, Longford-Lyell Australian Productions.' (Introduction)

1 Australian Cinema Is Reaping Box Office Rewards during the Pandemic. Can the Trend Continue? Stephen Gaunson , 2021 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 18 February 2021;
1 True History of the Kelly Gang Review : True History of the Kelly Gang Review: an Unheroic Portrait of a Violent, Unhinged, Colonial Punk Stephen Gaunson , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 9 January 2020;

— Review of True History of the Kelly Gang Shaun Grant , 2018 single work film/TV

'Justin Kurzel’s latest film, True History of the Kelly Gang, marks the tenth screen version of the 1878-1880 Ned Kelly outbreak. It began in 1906 with Charles Tait’s The Story of the Kelly Gang.' (Introduction)

1 White Male History : The Genre and Gender of The Proposition Stephen Gaunson , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Screen in the 2000s 2018; (p. 285-299)
1 American Cartel : Block Bookings and the Paramount Plan Stephen Gaunson , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: American–Australian Cinema : Transnational Connections 2018; (p. 205-225)
Argues that understanding of the Australian film industry requires understanding of how distribution and exhibition networks have shaped production.
1 Where I'm Calling From : An American-Australian Cinema? Adrian Danks , Stephen Gaunson , Peter C. Kunze , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: American–Australian Cinema : Transnational Connections 2018; (p. 1-15)
1 y separately published work icon American–Australian Cinema : Transnational Connections Adrian Danks (editor), Stephen Gaunson (editor), Peter C. Kunze (editor), Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2018 18450961 2018 anthology criticism

'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.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 Cinema Plus : Robert Connolly and Event Audience Screenings Stephen Gaunson , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 11 no. 2 2017; (p. 77-84)

This article discusses the problems that Australian films face in the big distribution model, and ways that producers have rethought how their films are funded and distributed. To do this it uses the case study of Robert Connolly's Cinema Plus exhibition company. Although there is a historical precedence set for Connolly's self distribution venture, this shift to rethink how Australian films are being distributed and exhibited is certainly representative of a changing reassessment of the porous relationship between production and exhibition, which for some time Screen Australia demarcated in by two separate pools. What Cinema Plus represents is a recognition that conventional big distribution is not always the most effective way to reach the widest possible audience.

1 Lost Adaptations : Piracy, ‘Rip Offs’, and the Australian Copyright Act 1905 Stephen Gaunson , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television , vol. 37 no. 2 2017; (p. 161-173)

'In this article, I want to historicise the study of Australian film adaptation by concentrating on the Copyright Act 1905, which during the nascent industrialisation of patent and copyright law did not recognise celluloid pictures as matter that could be copyrighted. Consequently, with the Act formed to provide authors greater powers to stop the proliferation of degraded versions of their work, film-makers saw adaptation as a strategy to legally protect their moving pictures from copyright infringements. By concentrating on Australia’s early industry of feature film production, it becomes apparent that through adaptation, and through the ability to copyright film as adaptation, there was a strong incentive in this formative period of Australian film production to adapt popular history tales drawn from the literature. And it was through this 1905 Act that the tradition of Australian adaptation and tradition of adapting historically set works began.

'While such an approach is necessary for this study, which concentrates on ‘lost’ feature films, the idea is to consider all forms and types of past and present adaptation as a way to encourage and advance its study. Here, I hope to gain some sort of understanding of how these literary works were being adapted, and socially consumed by its film-going audiences. This approach does not rely solely on a film’s source of adaptation or any one particular film. Instead, it places it within legal discourses of cinema activities including distribution, exhibition and marketing. By concentrating on the Australian cinema’s dedicated tradition of adaptation, during the silent period of film production, in this article, I will discuss how filmgoers at, and outside of, the cinema were encouraged to engage with feature films as adaptation – and what this culturally meant. In doing this, I hope to establish how Australian film adaptation began as a means to copyright a film from piracy and plagiarism ‘rip offs’.'

Source: Abstract.

1 Do Film Adaptations Boost Australian Movies at the Box Office? Stephen Gaunson , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 16 August 2016;
'... In an era of the movie franchise, audiences have become more cautious about taking a risk on unproven and untried material. Adaptations here become more important in creating a connection with a movie, often giving it a kind of instant visibility to the inherently iffy market of film exhibition. ...'
1 American Combine : Australasian Films Ltd., and Block Bookings Stephen Gaunson , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 9 no. 3 2015; (p. 241-252)
'The 1927–1928 Commonwealth Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia followed a series of public inquiries into the Australian cinema. One agenda of the Commission was to examine the dominance of American movies in Australian film exhibition. By concentrating on how the Commission explored this issue, as it related to the exhibition and distribution of Hollywood movies in Australia, here I will consider the extent to which Australian exhibition has been guided by and dependent on American movies. With the Commission established, in part, to explore the accusation of an American combine ruling the exhibition industry, and stunting the local production sector, the real question was whether the Commissioners would be persuaded to make recommendations to wrest the powers from America, and consequently redirect the local exhibition industry's dependence on Hollywood movies.' (Publication abstract)
1 Introduction to Re-evaluating the Royal Commission into the Australian Moving Picture Industry, 1927–1928 Jeannette Delamoir , Stephen Gaunson , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 9 no. 3 2015; (p. 225-229)
'Welcome to this special issue on ‘Re-evaluating the Royal Commission into the Australian Moving Picture Industry, 1927–1928’. Although nearly 90 years have passed since that Royal Commission, the concerns it addressed remain relevant today: how to protect the local film industry, and how to regulate the dominance of American movies. It is perhaps this reason as to why researchers, scholars, students and teachers keep returning to the Commission as a way to make sense of the complexities that continue to define the Australian cinema industry.' (Author's introduction)
1 y separately published work icon The Ned Kelly Films : A Cultural History of Kelly History Stephen Gaunson , Bristol Chicago : Intellect , 2013 7520597 2013 multi chapter work criticism

'One of Australia’s most notorious outlaws, Ned Kelly lived on the land from the time of his first arrest at age 14, until police captured him and his Kelly gang a decade later in 1880. Immortalized in a series of onscreen productions, he has since become one of the most resilient screen presences in the history of Australian cinema.

'Covering the nine feature films, three miniseries, and two TV movies that have been made about this controversial character, Stephen Gaunson illuminates a central irony: from novels to comics to the branding of the site where he was captured, most cultural representations of Kelly are decidedly lowbrow. But only the films have been condemned for not offering a more serious interpretation of this figure and his historical context. Asking what value we can place on such ‘bad’ historical cinema, Gaunson offers new insights about the textual characteristics of cinematic material and the conditions of film distribution, circulation, and reception.' (Publication summary)

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