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* Contents derived from the Strawberry Hills,Inner Sydney,Sydney,New South Wales,:Currency Press,2007 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Countering the Eurocentric Gaze? Europe in the Antipodean Filmic ImaginationJanine Hauthala,
2020single work criticism — Appears in:
Antipodes,vol.
34no.
22020;(p. 242-261)'This article explores how Europe is depicted in contemporary Antipodean films by drawing on the example of An Angel at my Table (1990), Romulus, My Father (2007), Mr. Pip (2012), and Dead Europe (2012). The comparative case study of these cinematic adaptations shows, first, how (British) literature shapes the protagonists' encounter with Europe. Second, the author examines whether the films perpetuate or counter the Eurocentric gaze. She argues that Campion and Roxburgh highlight characters' diasporic longing for, and their catalytic or unhealthy attachment to, Europe as "imaginary homeland." Adamson's adaptation, in turn, decenters Eurocentric visions, while Krawitz's portrayal of Europe as "traumascape" rejects the alleged superiority of an idealized Europe even more forcefully than Tsiolkas's novel does. Of the four films, only Mr. Pip visually engages postcolonial discourses and, at least indirectly, relates to the settler colonial contexts to which all four films belong. Ultimately, the films' shared engagement with Europe broadens the national focus of earlier Antipodean cinema, offering various avenues to rethink identity and belonging beyond the national and the postcolonial.' (Publication abstract)
Walking in Her Footsteps : Migration, Adaptation, and the Mother’s Journey in Romulus, My FatherFincina Hopgood,
2016single work criticism — Appears in:
Adaptation,Marchvol.
9no.
12016;(p. 22-34)'Philosopher Raimond Gaita’s acclaimed and much-loved memoir of his childhood in 1950s rural Victoria, Romulus, My Father (1998), was adapted for a feature film in 2007, starring Eric Bana and Franka Potente. Gaita worked closely with the film’s director, Australian actor Richard Roxburgh, and scriptwriter, English poet Nick Drake, throughout the scripting process, and wrote an extended introduction to the published screenplay. While speaking highly of the film’s production team and admiring the finished film in this introduction, Gaita’s subsequent writing in After Romulus, a collection of essays published in 2011, reveals his unease with the film’s portrayal of the character Christina, based on his mother who suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness and committed suicide at the age of 29. This article examines the dialogic relationship between the three texts of memoir, film, and essay and their attempts to empathetically imagine the life of Christine Gaita.'