NEW PUBLICATION: An international production but ‘not much Australian’: authenticity and Australianness in Under Capricorn (Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism)

June 18, 2021
Presenting my paper at Under Capricorn + 70 (King’s College London, 5-6 September 2019). [Photo credit: @FilmStudiesFF]

Way back in September 2019, I was invited to participate in a symposium, organised by Prof. Charles Barr and Dr Stéphane Duckett, celebrating the 70th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock’s much maligned, Australian-set melodrama, Under Capricorn (1949).

Tasked with offering a perspective on the film’s Australian connections, I presented a paper entitled ‘An international production but ‘not much Australian’: authenticity and Australianness in Under Capricorn’, and I’m pleased to say that an extended and revised version of that paper has now been published as part of a special dossier on the film, Under Capricorn: 70 Years On, published by Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism (open access).

Continue reading “NEW PUBLICATION: An international production but ‘not much Australian’: authenticity and Australianness in Under Capricorn (Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism)”

Video Essay: David Gulpilil, settler cinema, and the Indigenous body

April 1, 2021

Coronavirus has somehow allowed me to avoid conference presentations for over a year now, whilst also opening up the opportunity to attend online versions of conferences I’ve never been able to attend in person (such as the SSAAANZ conference back in December).

The theme of this year’s online BAFTSS conference – ‘time and the body’ – got me pondering ‘bodies’ in Australian cinema, and how the body politic of national cinema has shifted since the film revival of the 1970s. The result is a ten minute video essay entitled David Gulpilil, settler cinema, and the Indigenous body, below, which is really just a sketch towards some recent thinking about Australia’s settler cinema/s, and the potential problems of absorbing Indigenous cinema (and Indigenous bodies) within a national-cultural framework that still actively excludes (or harms) First Nations communities and individuals.

At this year’s conference – hosted by the University of Southampton – I’ll be discussing the video essay, and some of these ideas, in Session F, Panel 1 – ‘Postcoloniality and Indigeneity’ – on Thursday April 8, alongside my fellow panellists Patrick Adamson and Paul Janman.

Further information on this year’s BAFTSS conference (April 7-9), including registration details, can be found on the association’s website.

Free Online Talk: Ealing Down Under, 17 March 2021

December 17, 2020

On 17 March 2021, I’ll be delivering a free online talk, introducing Ealing Studios’ Australian venture, as part of an excellent series of public events organised by Westminster Libraries. My talk comes a couple of weeks after Jenny Stewart on Ealing’s depictions of post-war London, and there are also talks from Jose Arroyo on Burt Lancaster, Mark Glancy on Hitchcock and Grant, and many more still to be announced.

Continue reading “Free Online Talk: Ealing Down Under, 17 March 2021”

The Tyranny of (Social) Distance: Virtual Film Clubs and Coping with Covid

August 4, 2020

sapphires
Watching, and chatting about, The Sapphires as part of To(S)D #5

In lieu of the 2019/20 Menzies Screening Series – which was due to commence in late March, but was cancelled due to the Covid-19 epidemic – a small cohort of academics, researchers, and friends of the Menzies Australia Institute have been holding a virtual film club, every Tuesday. What started as a casual way to keep in touch early in lockdown has developed into a weekly link to the world beyond our (often) home-bound bubbles. Just prior to the first ‘screening’, we dubbed it the Tyranny of (Social) Distance Film Club; a nod to (and none-too-subtle bastardisation of) that famous phrase, popularised by controversial Australian historian (and History Warrior), Geoffrey Blainey. The ‘Tyranny of Distance’ was a notion that sought to articulate the particular character imposed on Australia by its distance from Europe, and it seemed an apt name for an Australian film club that takes place online, whilst we are all physically distant from our friends, family, and colleagues.

Continue reading “The Tyranny of (Social) Distance: Virtual Film Clubs and Coping with Covid”

David Stratton’s Stories of Australian Cinema – A Watch List

May 18, 2020

DS

 

Every Sunday evening, for the last few weeks, I’ve been live-tweeting along to David Stratton’s Stories of Australian Cinema (you can revisit the threads here: episode 1 / episode 2 / episode 3).

While the theatrical cut played at the BFI London Film Festival back in 2016 (and again at a London Australian Film event in 2017), only now has the full, three-part documentary series – produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – finally got an airing on BBC Four in the UK. If you missed it, you can catch up via BBC iPlayer where it will remain for the next twelve months.

In the series, David Stratton – Australia’s leading British-born film critic and long-standing fixture of the Sydney Film Festival (for which he served as director from 1966-1983) – presents a fascinating and jolly (if, understandably patchy) jaunt through Australian cinema, with episodes themed around ‘Game Changers’, ‘Outsiders’, and ‘Family’.

In conversations about the series on social media, quite a few people have lamented the fact that – unlike other shows of this ilk – the BBC have elected not to show a relevant film after each episode. Others have noted that Stratton’s documentary has given them a whole new bunch of films to add to their watch-lists, especially since the UK remains on lockdown due to Covid-19.

So, without further ado, and to help you on your way to (re)discovering some of the delights that Australian cinema has to offer, here is my brief round-up of how British audiences might go about tracking down some of the films featured in the series.

Continue reading “David Stratton’s Stories of Australian Cinema – A Watch List”

POSTPONED: Menzies Screening Series 2019/20

March 5, 2020

MS-2019:20

UPDATE 12/05/2020: For obvious reasons, this year’s Menzies Screenings were all cancelled, and the series postponed. All things going well, I hope to be able to present an extended version of this themed screening series at the Menzies Australia Institute in 2020/21.

Delayed slightly by a hefty first term workload (and two bouts of UCU strike action), I’m pleased to announce that the Menzies Screening Series is returning to the Menzies Australia Institute at King’s College London for a trio of events in early 2020.

Continue reading “POSTPONED: Menzies Screening Series 2019/20”

CANCELLED: The Sentimental Bloke in Scotland!

March 5, 2020

sentimental

UPDATE 12/05/2020: For obvious reasons, this year’s Hippodrome Silent Film Festival was postponed to October. Sadly, this has also been cancelled, but I hope to be able to organise a belated centenary screening of the film in London at some point in the future.

On Friday March 20, I will be introducing a very special screening of Australia’s finest silent film, The Sentimental Bloke (1919), at the brilliant Hippodrome Silent Film Festival (HippFest) in Bo’ness, Scotland. Based on CJ Dennis’ vivid, colloquial verse about the lives and loves of working class folk, the film is the product of a brief but fruitful partnership between Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell.

Continue reading “CANCELLED: The Sentimental Bloke in Scotland!”

Any Questions?

February 27, 2020

etched
In conversation with Martin Thomas and Béatrice Bijon, co-directors of Etched in Bone

In the midst of a very busy last six months or so (including spending last term teaching five modules across three institutions, AND working a part time job!), I had the distinct pleasure of hosting Q&As after a couple of brilliant documentary screenings.

Continue reading “Any Questions?”

Interview with Al Araby Television

August 19, 2019

Screen Shot 2019-08-19 at 12.45.55

During the London Australian Film Festival at the end of June, I gave an interview for Tales of Cinema, a series of half-hour programmes on different aspects of the cinema, produced for London-based Al Araby Television. The episode in which I featured was broadcast to audiences across North Africa and the Middle East on August 6, and is now available to stream.

Continue reading “Interview with Al Araby Television”