This introduction to the new Australian film industry explores prominent directors and stars, themes, styles, and evolving genres in an analysis of key films. The evolution of genres peculiar to Australia and adaptations of conventional Hollywood forms such as the musical and the road movie are examined through readings of landmark films, including Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mad Max trilogy, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The key issue of the revival--the definition, representation, and propagation of a national image--is woven through the analysis.

Provides an introduction to the products and context of the new Australian film industry which arose toward the end of the 1960s. Traces the development of Australian film, in terms of prominent directors and stars, consistent themes, styles and evolving genres. The evolution of the film genres peculiar to Australia, and the adaptation of conventional Hollywood forms (such as the musical and the road movie) are examined in detail through textual readings of landmark films. Films and trends discussed include: the period film and Picnic at Hanging Rock; the Gothic film and the Mad Max trilogy; camp and kitsch comedy and the Adventures of Pricilla, Queen of the Desert. The key issue of the revival (the definition, representation and propagation of a national image) is woven through analysis of the new Australian cinema.

Australian Genre Film interrogates key genres at the core of Australia’s so-called new golden age of genre cinema, establishing the foundation on which more sustained research on film genre in Australian cinema can develop. The book examines what characterises Australian cinema and its output in this new golden age, as contributors ask to what extent Australian genre film draws on widely understood (and largely Hollywood-based) conventions, as compared to culturally specific conventions of genre storytelling. As such, this book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Australian genre film, undertaken through original analyses of 13 significant Australian genres: action, biopics, comedy, crime, horror, musical, road movie, romance, science fiction, teen, thriller, war, and the Western. This book will be a cornerstone work for the burgeoning field of Australian film genre studies and a must-read for academics; researchers; undergraduate students; postgraduate students; and general readers interested in film studies, media studies, cultural studies, Australian studies, and sociology.

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7, Free University of Berlin (Institut für Englische Philologie), language: English, abstract: Der Begriff „grotesk“ bezieht sich auf die Theorie des Karnival des russischen Akademikers Michail Bachtin, der mittelalterliche Volkskultur und seine Manifestationen in Literatur und Gesellschaft untersuchte. In seiner Studie Rabelais and His World (1968) argumentiert Bachtin, dass die Befreiung „from conventions and established truths“(Bachtin, in Danow, 1995, 34) während des sozialen Ereignisses des Karnival in einer Inversion der sozialen Strukturen und hegemonischen Kodes resultiert, womit eine Kritik an der existierenden sozialen Ordnung ausgedrückt wird. Diese Theorie des Grotesken ist in der Literatur- und Filmwissenschaft zur Anwendung gekommen, da es dominante Repräsentationen von sozialen, politischen und gesellschaftlichen Sturkturen umkehrt und unterminiert. Innerhalb eines australischen Kontextes argumentiere ich, dass Filme wie Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989), Muriel’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1994), The Adventures of Priscilla – Queen of the Desert (Stephen Elliott, 1994), Metal Skin (Geoffrey Wright, 1995), Chopper (Andrew Domenik, 1999) oder The Castle (Robert Sitch, 1997) typisch australische Filme sind, da sie das Element des Grotesken als einen definierenden „aesthetic and thematic trend“ (Rayner, 2000, 21) verwenden und sich so von den konventionellen Normen Hollywoods absetzen. Die Figur des Grotesken ist also nicht nur ein visuelles und narratives Stilelement, sondern auch ein dominantes und definierendes Merkmal in der australischen Filmlandschaft. Die Identifikation des Grotesken als gemeinsames Merkmal populärer australischer Langfilme kann weiterführend als Beitrag zur Diskussion über ein Australian National Cinema und seine identitätsstiftende Wirkung verwendet werden.

This study is a collection of critical and scholarly analyses of the organisation of the Australian Film Industry since 1990. Particular emphasis is put on globalisation, authorship, national narrative and film aesthetics.

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.

The first comprehensive volume of original essays on Australian screen culture in the twenty-first century. A Companion to Australian Cinema is an anthology of original essays by new and established authors on the contemporary state and future directions of a well-established national cinema. A timely intervention that challenges and expands the idea of cinema, this book brings into sharp focus those facets of Australian cinema that have endured, evolved and emerged in the twenty-first century. The essays address six thematically-organized propositions – that Australian cinema is an Indigenous screen culture, an international cinema, a minor transnational imaginary, an enduring auteur-genre-landscape tradition, a televisual industry and a multiplatform ecology. Offering fresh critical perspectives and extending previous scholarship, case studies range from The Lego Movie, Mad Max, and Australian stars in Hollywood, to transnational co-productions, YouTube channels, transmedia and nature-cam documentaries. New research on trends – such as the convergence of television and film, digital transformations of screen production and the shifting roles of women on and off-screen – highlight how established precedents have been influenced by new realities beyond both cinema and the national. Written in an accessible style that does not require knowledge of cinema studies or Australian studies Presents original research on Australian actors, such as Cate Blanchett and Chris Hemsworth, their training, branding, and path from Australia to Hollywood Explores the films and filmmakers of the Blak Wave and their challenge to Australian settler-colonial history and white identity Expands the critical definition of cinema to include YouTube channels, transmedia documentaries, multiplatform changescapes and cinematic remix Introduces readers to founding texts in Australian screen studies A Companion to Australian Cinema is an ideal introductory text for teachers and students in areas including film and media studies, cultural and gender studies, and Australian history and politics, as well as a valuable resource for educators and other professionals in the humanities and creative arts.