Australian Screen Classics series - publisher  
Note: Series editor.
Issue Details: First known date: 2002... 2002 Australian Screen Classics
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Notes

  • A series of monographs by prominent writers from disciplines ranging across art, culture and politics, on Australian films they feel passionate about.

    Source: Currency Press website 02/12/02

Includes

1
y separately published work icon The Devil's Playground Christos Tsiolkas , Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2002 Z1046714 2002 single work criticism 'Christos Tsiolkas invites you into his twenty-five year journey of viewing, reviewing and re-imagining the film [The Devil's Playground]. He remembers his first illicit experience of the film at age thirteen and describes how his views of it changed in later years. As he chronicles the impact of The Devil's Playground on the development of his love of cinema, he also explores the film in terms of sexuality, politics, history and aesthetics.' -- Currency Press website (http://www.currency.com.au/film_index.htm) Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2002
2
y separately published work icon The Mad Max Movies Adrian Martin , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2003 Z1040121 2003 single work criticism "Martin compares the three Mad Max movies and shares his views on which works best and why. In a chapter dedicated to each film, he looks at their critical reception and their themes, examines Miller's shooting techniques and provides a shot-by-shot analysis of integral scenes."--Currency Press Newsletter, April, 2003 Strawberry Hills : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2003
3
y separately published work icon Walkabout Louis Nowra , Sydney : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2003 Z1039055 2003 single work criticism

'Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout opened worldwide in 1971. Based on the novel of the same name by James Vance Marshall, it is the story of two white children lost in the Australian Outback. They survive only through the help of an Aboriginal boy who is on walkabout during his initiation into manhood. The film earned itself a unique place in cinematic history and was re-released in 1998.

In this illuminating reflection on Walkabout, Louis Nowra, one of Australia's leading dramatists and screenwriters, discusses Australia's iconic sense of the outback; and the peculiar resonance that the story of the lost child has in the Australian psyche. He tells how the film came to be made and how its preoccupations fit into the oeuvre of both its director and cinematographer Nicolas Roeg, and its screenwriter Edward Bond.

Nowra identifies the film's distinctive take on a familiar story and its fable-like qualities, while also exploring the film's relationship to Australia and its implications for the English society of its day. He recognizes how relevant the film is to the contemporary struggle to try and find common ground between blacks and white.' -- Currency Press (2003)

Sydney : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2003
4
y separately published work icon Puberty Blues Nell Schofield , Sydney : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2004 Z1354318 2004 single work criticism

'Bruce Beresford's Puberty Blues is a funny and poignant film that still speaks to the teenage audience as it honestly and sensitively deals with some of the central trials and temptations of growing up. The author recounts her experiences as the star of the film and what it was like filming the book by Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey.' (Source: Libraries Australia).

'Schofield recalls how she won the role of Debbie and what it was like on the set. She looks at the parallels between the film, the book and her own surfside teenage years, and at the extraordinary responses to the film, both on its release and since.' - Back cover

Sydney : Currency Press ScreenSound Australia , 2004
5
y separately published work icon The Barry McKenzie Movies Tony Moore , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2005 Z1229014 2005 single work criticism (taught in 1 units)

'Bruce Beresford's a colourful film about an 'innocent abroad' as he blunders his way through the London of the 1970s was panned by the critics but a huge success with audiences. The film became the first Australian movie to make a million dollars, thereby playing a crucial part in the resurgence of the Australian film industry in the early 1970s by demonstrating the commercial viability of local production. It also did very well commercially in London, where it established a record for any Australian film released there.

'Based on Barry Humphries comic-strip character, which appeared in the British satirical magazine Private Eye in the 1960s, the screenplay was written by Humphries and Beresford, the story line deriving from the culture clash between the Australian innocent 'Bazza' McKenzie and the English - from a taxi driver who takes Barry from Heathrow to Earls Court by way of Stonehenge, to the decadent upper classes with their public school fetishes, the swinging scene of pop music promoters and Jesus freaks, and eventually the hallowed halls of BBC television. ' (Publication summary)

Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2005
6
y separately published work icon The Piano Gail Jones , Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press Australian Film Commission , 2007 Z1382127 2007 single work criticism

'The Piano, written and directed by Jane Campion, is one of the most honoured films of the new Australian cinema, and is considered by many critics to be a modern masterpiece. Campion won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1993 for the film, making her the first woman ever to win this prestigious award; it also won Best Original Screenplay (Campion), Best Actress (Holly Hunter) and Best Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin) at the 1994 Oscars.

'In 1880 the widowed, and mute, Ada (Holly Hunter) and her young daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin) leave their native Scotland and travel to New Zealand’s remote South Island, as the arranged family of Stewart (Sam Neil), an Englishman who lives and works the land there. With them come Ada’s piano which serves as her outlet of expression, her ‘voice’. Despite fierce insistence from Ada, Stewart leaves the piano on the beach after he decides it is too heavy to carry back to his homestead. Stewart’s neighbour Baines (Harvey Kietel) makes a deal with Stewart for the piano and lessons with Ada, which has dire repercussions for them all.' (Publication summary)

Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press Australian Film Commission , 2007
7
y separately published work icon The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Philip Brophy , Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press Australian Film Commission , 2008 Z1471536 2008 single work criticism Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press Australian Film Commission , 2008
8
y separately published work icon The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith Henry Reynolds , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press National Film and Sound Archive , 2008 Z1491067 2008 single work criticism

'Set in central-western New South Wales in the 1890s, Fred Schepisi’s film of Thomas Keneally’s award-winning novel is a powerful and confronting story of a black man’s revenge against an unjust and intolerant society.

'Raised by missionaries, Jimmie Blacksmith, a young half-caste Aboriginal man, is poignantly caught between the ways of his black forefathers and those of the white society to which he aspires. Exploited by his boss and betrayed by his [white] wife, he declares war on his white employers and goes on a violent killing spree.

'The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith was one of the most significant films of the 1970s ‘renaissance’. It was the first Australian feature in which the whole story is told from an Aboriginal perspective and it broke new ground in dealing with one of the most tragic aspects of Australian history: the racist treatment of the Aboriginal population. The spectre of the violent and vengeful black had barely been touched upon and the depth of rage that the film put on screen was unprecedented in Australian film at the time.' (Publication summary)

Strawberry Hills : Currency Press National Film and Sound Archive , 2008
9
y separately published work icon Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2008 Z1508682 2008 single work criticism

'One of the seminal films of the 1970s, Alvin Purple depicts Alvin's struggles with his irresistibility to women - from his school days and time as a waterbed salesman to his short-lived career as a sex therapist. The 'definitive ocker comedy', Alvin Purple survived a critical mauling and went on to become the most commercially successful Australian film of the 1970s.

'Catharine Lumby takes a fresh look at the film, the social and political era in which it was made and the forces that fuelled its success. She revisits claims that the movie is little more than an exercise in sexploitation and argues that the film is far more complex than its detractors have allowed.' (Publisher's blurb)

According to McFarlane 'Lumby situates this discourse on Alvin as a representation of female desire in the 1970s context of a feminist polemics which made itself felt variously in the high-level argumentation of a Germaine Greer and in more populist vein in the pages of Cleo magazine.'

Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2008
10
y separately published work icon The Boys Andrew Frost , Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press National Film and Sound Archive , 2010 Z1690632 2010 single work criticism

'Lauded by many as one of the most powerful Australian films made in the past 20 years, Rowan Woods' stunning debut feature The Boys touched off a storm of media controversy upon its release in 1998.

'The film evoked vivid memories of the 1986 rape and murder of a young Sydney woman named Anita Cobby. Although Woods' film was fictional, The Boys remains inextricably connected to its real-life counterpart in the minds of many viewers.

'But that connection is only part of the story behind the making of The Boys. In this thoughtful and thought-provoking essay, Andrew Frost contextualises the major thematic concerns of the film into the broader context of social anxieties about violence, crime and morality.

'Frost chronicles his own personal journey with the film and its makers from art school to the underground Super 8 filmmaking scene of Sydney in the mid-1980s, from the early short films of director Woods to the multiple award-winning The Boys. Frost discovers new aspects of The Boys even today and wonders if its stinging moral message has been heard among the clamour of everyday suburban life.' (From the publisher's website.)

Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press National Film and Sound Archive , 2010
11
y separately published work icon Wake in Fright Tina Kaufman , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2010 Z1732191 2010 single work criticism 'Based on the celebrated novel by Kenneth Cook, the film Wake in Fright was critically acclaimed on its release, and is considered one of the best films produced in Australia, influencing recent films such as Wolf Creek. The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971 and again on re-release in 2009 as a Classic. In this insightful monograph, Tina Kaufman discusses what lies behind Wake in Fright.' Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2010
12
y separately published work icon Wolf Creek Sonya Hartnett , Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press National Film and Sound Archive , 2011 Z1803059 2011 single work criticism 'In 2005, the horror film Wolf Creek depicted the abduction and torture of three backpackers in the Australian outback, and created an immediate industry and media frenzy. Wolf Creek tapped into the myth of the lonely continent, a fear of the country's hostility and its indifference to suffering, traits which have been deeply etched into our national psyche by real life events such as the Milat and Murdoch murders. Sonya Hartnett takes the hard landscape and the rogue men who inhabit these spaces and evokes the surrealistic terror which continues to fascinate outsiders and locals.' Source: www.currency.com.au/ (Sighted 01/09/2011). Strawberry Hills Canberra : Currency Press National Film and Sound Archive , 2011
13
y separately published work icon Rabbit-Proof Fence Larissa Behrendt , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2012 8760038 2012 single work criticism (taught in 1 units)

'Written by Christine Olsen and directed by Phillip Noyce, Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the story of Doris Pilkington’s mother, the then fourteen-year-old Molly Craig, her sister Daisy, aged eight, and cousin Gracie, aged eleven, who were all forcibly removed from their families at Jigalong in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in 1931.

'Taken to the Moore River Native Settlement, a mission on the western Australian coast some 2000 kilometres from home, they were to be trained as domestic servants. Desperately home sick, Molly, Daisy and Gracie escaped, and following the rabbit-proof fence, they walked thousands of kilometres across desert back home, all the while being stalked by the authorities.

'In this honest and frank account Eualeyai and Kamillaroi woman, academic and award-winning author Larissa Behrendt finds much about this story that resonates: the need and desire to find one’s home, one’s sense of place, one’s sense of self. This is undoubtedly a universal quest but for Aboriginal people taken from their families, as these children were, that search for home, that need to feel complete, is all the more powerful.' (Publication summary)

Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2012
14
y separately published work icon Jedda Jane Mills , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2012 Z1863986 2012 single work criticism 'Filmed in 1955 Jedda was the first Australian feature film to use Aboriginal actors in lead roles, the first to be filmed in colour and the first to be shown at the Cannes film festival. It tells the tragic story of a young Aboriginal girl of the Arunte tribe, adopted by a white woman, Sarah McCann, as a surrogate for her own baby who has died. She raises her as a white child, isolating her from Aboriginal contact. But when Marbuck, an Aboriginal man seeking work arrives on the station, Jedda is fascinated by him. Jedda was one of several popular melodramas of the post-World War II era that dealt with miscegenation. Mills explores these themes and the representation of the Australian Aborigine, while making comparisons to the Native American sub-genre of the Hollywood Western. Source: http://www.currency.com.au/ (Sighted 27/08/2012). Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2012
15
y separately published work icon The Back of Beyond Sylvia Lawson , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2013 Z1924352 2013 single work criticism

'The Back of Beyond celebrates the life and times of Australia’s best known outback mail man Tom Kruse MBE. Every fortnight he battled isolation, heat, sand dunes and floods to deliver mail and supplies to the families along the 517 kilometre Birdsville Track in central Australia.

'Representing the complex interrelations of the multicultural community and their environs, the film is considered by many to be one of Australia’s premier films, and is an exemplary representation of 1950s Australian transformational culture.' (Publication blurb)

Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2013
16
y separately published work icon Mad Dog Morgan Jake Wilson , Sydney : Currency Press , 2015 8759979 2015 single work criticism

'Mad Dog Morgan was a risky project on every level: artistic, financial, psychological and physical. What made the risks worth taking? What was at stake for the film's makers– and for Australian cinema?

'Released in 1976 at the peak of the Australian film revival, Philippe Mora's dramatisation of the bloody life and death of the nation's most infamous bushranger stands at the crossroads of multiple genres and trends: a violent action movie, an excavation of a traumatic colonial past, an antipodean variant on the 'acid Western', and a radical experiment with echoes of Bertolt Brecht and Jean-Luc Godard. Morgan himself is seen as a ruthless avenger, yet also a helpless victim–a paradox brought to life in the gonzo lead performance by Dennis Hopper, backed by an extraordinary supporting cast including Jack Thompson, David Gulpilil, Bill Hunter, John Hargreaves and Frank Thring.

'Jake Wilson's thoroughly researched book takes a fresh look at the historical Dan Morgan as well as the film's colourful production history and its significance in the wayward career trajectories of its director and star. Above all, it interrogates the creative risk-taking drive that made the film, like the man himself, into the legend that it is. ' (Publication summary)

Sydney : Currency Press , 2015

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

An Interview with Jane Mills Fiona Villella (interviewer), 2001 single work interview
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , April-May no. 13 2001;
Editor's note: In this interview, Jane talks freely about the series and what she hopes it will achieve.
An Interview with Jane Mills Fiona Villella (interviewer), 2001 single work interview
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , April-May no. 13 2001;
Editor's note: In this interview, Jane talks freely about the series and what she hopes it will achieve.

PeriodicalNewspaper Details

ISSN: 1447-557X
Last amended 30 May 2012 09:29:26
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