Anne Rutherford Anne Rutherford i(A119245 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 Lessons from the Flesh Anne Rutherford , 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , September vol. 81 no. 3 2022; (p. 144-149)

'We speak of visceral experience but what do we know of viscera? Who among us has plunged their hands deep into the bowl of an abdomen and lifted out handfuls of bowel, feeling the slippery coils slide across their fingers? Who knows the gut feeling of feeling gut? The touch, the texture, the weight, the smell.' (Introduction) 
1 y separately published work icon Anne Rutherford on The Australian Wars : Rachel Perkins as Documentarist and Witness Anne Rutherford , 2022 25493568 2022 single work podcast

'This week’s ABR Podcast features Anne Rutherford’s review of the new SBS miniseries The Australian Wars, published in the November issue of ABR. Directed by Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman Rachel Perkins, the series is an attempt to recast Australian frontier conflict by posing new questions. Echoing Perkins, Rutherford asks: ‘Why is the extreme violence of the frontier not recognised as war?’ and ‘Why is the death of an estimated 100,000 people on the frontier, both black and white, not acknowledged and memorialised?’ ' (Production summary) 
1 Such Pretty Teeth, Dear : The Tension between Thrills and Conservation Anne Rutherford , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 434 2021; (p. 65-66)
— Review of Playing With Sharks : The Valerie Taylor Story 2021 single work film/TV

'Any film about shark conservation faces a dilemma: how to de-sensationalise an animal whose cinematic charisma relies on the combination of thrill and fear. What reels us in as viewers is the excitement of an up-close, full-frontal encounter with a dangerous predator. Film scholar Tom Gunning talks about this as ‘lust for the eyes’, when an image ‘rushes forward to meet the viewer’, provoking ‘a complicated sort of excitement bordering on terror’.' (Introduction)
1 An Open Letter to Jay Swan Anne Rutherford , 2020 single work prose
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , October vol. 24 no. 2 2020;
1 In Conversation with Ivan Sen Anne Rutherford (editor), Susan Thwaites (interviewer), 2018 single work interview
— Appears in: Axon : Creative Explorations , November vol. 8 no. 2 2018;

'This article is an edited transcript of The Films of Ivan Sen symposium, convened and chaired by Susan Thwaites at University of Canberra on 10 July 2015.'

'Ivan Sen is an important figure in what has been called the Blak Wave in Australian cinema — the rise over the last few decades of a growing number of talented Indigenous filmmakers who are redefining long-held conceptions about Australian cinema. Since his first feature, Beneath Clouds (2002), Sen’s films have won numerous awards, nationally and internationally, and received widespread critical acclaim. The symposium was a rare opportunity for an in-depth discussion with Sen about his film-making process and aspirations. At the time of the symposium, Goldstone (2016) was in post-production and Sen was working on the screenplay for his planned feature, Loveland.

'To open the symposium, Susan Thwaites begins by picking up threads from an earlier conversation she had with Sen.'  (Introduction)
1 Ivan Sen’s Goldstone: a Taut, Layered Exploration of What Echoes in the Silences Anne Rutherford , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 7 June 2016;
— Review of Goldstone Ivan Sen , 2016 single work film/TV 'With only five minutes of screen time and two minutes of dialogue, David Gulpilil delivers a powerful performance in Goldstone. When he first appears on screen, Gulpilil sits in a chair out on the dirt. Silent. Poised. Focused. Dapper in black cowboy hat and red shirt buttoned up to his chin to frame his face.'
1 Walking the Edge : Performance, the Cinematic Body and the Cultural Mediator in Ivan Sen's Mystery Road Anne Rutherford , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 9 no. 3 2015; (p. 312-326) 'This article examines the powerful performance of actor Aaron Pedersen in Ivan Sen's 2013 film, Mystery Road, exploring his performance and his role as a key to the cinematic and cultural significance of the film. Through an analysis of pivotal scenes of the film and drawing on a wide range of interviews with director and actor, the article argues that Mystery Road brings a complexity and cultural resonance to the role of an inter-cultural mediator that breaks new ground in Australian cinema. Exploring questions of genre, embodied performance and an aesthetics of sparseness, the article argues that Sen reframes the familiar cultural trope of the Indigenous person ‘caught between two cultures’, rendering that figure as an active bicultural negotiator. The concept of the cinematic body is deployed to explore energetic dimensions of Pedersen's performance. The article argues that the cinematic construction of that energetic connection with spectators relies on a directorial conception of cinema that is flexible, innovative, cinematically ambitious and culturally challenging. The article works from inside the energetic dynamics of performance and its cinematic construction to examine the challenges the film makes to Australian cinema.' (Publication summary)
1 William Kentridge’s Black Box : The Cog that Turns the Wheel Anne Rutherford , 2013 single work prose
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , April vol. 17 no. 1 2013; 'This article is a piece of creative non-fiction that explores the construction of place in the multimedia installation work of artist William Kentridge. The article explores the installation Black Box, an acclaimed miniature theatre work that traces the roots of the racist ideology of the Nazis back to the German massacre of the indigenous Herero in south-west Africa in 1905 and the methods of racial management that prefigured the development of the Nazi concentration camps. Through the exploration of the German colonial adventure, the article raises questions about the links between German colonial policies and those developed in Australia.

The installation is an experimental work and the article works with a performative writing style to evoke the dynamics of the artwork as it oscillates between historical detail and audiovisual phantasmagoria. As such, the piece experiments with structures of rhythm and repetition and the use of excess in a way that mirrors the kaleidoscopic montage that characterises the installation.' (Author's abstract)
1 Ten Canoes as ‘Inter-Cultural Membrane’ Anne Rutherford , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , October vol. 7 no. 2-3 2013; (p. 137-151) 'This article examines the ways in which Ten Canoes (de Heer and Djiggir, 2006) works as what Nicholas Rothwell has called ‘an inter-cultural membrane’. The article scrutinizes the rhetoric developed around the film, exploring questions around ownership, cultural mediation and the authorial voice. An extended interview with the co-director, Rolf de Heer, examines the production process to explore the structuring of the film through script, shooting and editing and the double process of pragmatics and aesthetics that drove the production process. The article proposes reframing the question of authenticity as fidelity to the complexities of the present, rather than fidelity to the past. It argues that an attempt to fully understand and articulate the complex dimensions of cultural exchange, collaboration and cultural translation, and the complex intermeshing of hybrid cultural and aesthetic notions, would produce a more productive and dynamic debate around the interface of cultural exchange than currently emerges from the rhetoric around the film. The article argues for an engaged and dialogic approach to film criticism, grounded in cultural research, in which the conceptual paradigms and speaking positions of the critic are equally opened to scrutiny.' (Author's abstract)
1 Ten Canoes and the Ethnographic Photographs of Donald Thomson : ‘Animate Thought’ and ‘The Light of the World’ Anne Rutherford , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , 1 March vol. 18 no. 1 2012; (p. 107-137) 'This article explores the genesis of the film Ten Canoes in the photographs taken by anthropologist Donald Thomson, in Arnhem Land, in the 1930s. Thomson's images profoundly informed the look and content of the film, and the paper traces this genealogy in order to identify a 'cultural imaginary' at work in the film. I argue that a close study of Thomson's original photographs reveals an approach to photography and to culture that dramatically exceeds the boundaries of the detached anthropological/scientific gaze. Thomson's vision is a highly tactile one. His images are as much an encounter with the light of the world as they are a document of a time, an environment and a culture; his lens is as much an organ of touch as an instrument of observation. In a remarkable example of what Tim Ingold has called 'animate thought', Thomson uses the materiality of photography to make manifest a life-world in which reeds, water and sky are as animate as human figures. Not easily accessible to established criteria for analysing ethnographic images, such as questions of self-reflexivity, Thomson's polycentric images profoundly challenge the humanist assumptions of many contemporary approaches to reading images. This insight raises new questions about both ethnographic photography and the relationship between the photographs and Ten Canoes.' (Author's abstract)
1 The Porcelain Face Anne Rutherford , 2007 single work short story
— Appears in: What You Do and Don't Want : UTS Writers' Anthology 2007 2007; (p. 192-202)
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