JLG/Jean Améry
The death of cinema was the subject of intense theoretical concern in the final years of the twentieth century and beyond. The impending approach of the millennium as well as…
Malick’s Music of the Spheres: The Tree of Life
The small but accelerating output of Terrence Malick has largely been approached via its visual poetry. Balancing this, each film has also brought a distinctive soundtrack, in particular the extended…
Ensemble Film, Postmodernity and Moral Mapping
The marked increase in the popularity of the ensemble film in recent decades can be understood to be a product of the form’s potential to present and reflect upon the…
The Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, and the Liberalisation of Film Censorship in Australia
The Federal Minister for Customs and Excise, Don Chipp, introduced the ‘R’ certificate for films in Australia in 1971. As is well known, Chipp’s decision was a key landmark in…
Which Hollywood? Which Ophuls?
This text was first written in 1980, when I was 20 years old. I had already been published in magazines including Cinema Papers, Metro and Buff over the preceding year.…
The Six Functions of the Shot
Every shot is independent of those that together with it make up the film. A film is a collection of independent shots. When we see a film of four hundred…
‘This Magazine is for Airing Personal Complaints’ (1983)
In my own city I am but a consumer. I work hard at my designated task, which is to document a personal history of my purchases and stock-take carefully for…
VOLA X (Introduction)
In 1983, a long way before Leos Carax fixed on Herman Melville’s novel Pierre ou les ambiguïtés (as he knew it) for a film and TV project, I considered writing…
Poetics of Pop: The Titles of Things (1982)
Introduction: I commissioned this text as part of a thirty-minute audiovisual piece titled Poetics of Pop, presented at the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre on 6 October 1982: a combination…
Ecce Homo: The Male-Body-In-Pain as Redemptive Figure
Kent L. Brintnall, Ecce Homo: The Male-Body-In-Pain as Redemptive Figure Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2011 ISBN: 9 780 226074702 US$32.50 (pb). 256pp (Review copy supplied by The…
One Night on TV is Worth Weeks at the Paramount: Popular Music on Early Television
Murray Forman, One Night on TV is Worth Weeks at the Paramount: Popular Music on Early Television Duke University Press: Durham & London, 2012 ISBN: 978-082235011-8 US$27.95 (pb) 424pp (Review…
Ephemeral Media: Transitory Screen Culture from Television to YouTube
Paul Grainge (ed.), Ephemeral Media: Transitory Screen Culture from Television to YouTube British Film Institute, Palgrave Macmillan 2011 ISBN: 978184457434 US$24.95 (pb) 248pp (Review copy supplied by Palgrave Macmillan) Collected…
A Post-May Adolescence: A letter to Alice Debord
Olivier Assayas, A Post-May Adolescence: A letter to Alice Debord (Translated and annotated by Adrian Martin and Rachel Zerner) Vienna: Austrian Film Museum publishers, 2012 ISBN: 978-3-901644-44-3 Euro: 14,00 (pb)…
Sergio Leone Something To Do With Death (reprint edition)
Sir Christopher Frayling, Sergio Leone Something To Do With Death (reprint edition) University of Minnesota Press, 2012 ISBN: 978-0-8166-4683-8 US $24.95 (pb) 592pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota…
Fantasy Film: A Critical Introduction
James Walters, Fantasy Film: A Critical Introduction Berg publishers, 2011 ISBN: 978-1-84788-308-7 US$29.95 (pb) 153pp (Review copy supplied by Berg publishers) Fantasy Film is a book written in the light…
Glimpses of Freedom: Independent Cinema in Southeast Asia.
May Adadol Ingawanij and Benjamin McKay (eds.), Glimpses of Freedom: Independent Cinema in Southeast Asia. Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, Ithaca, New York, 2012 ISBN: 978-0-87727-755-2 US$23.50 (pb) 239 pp…
Science Fiction Film: A Critical Introduction
Keith M. Johnston, Science Fiction Film: A Critical Introduction Berg Publishers, 2012 ISBN: 978-1-84788-476-3 US$29.95 (pb) 197pp (Review copy supplied by Bloomsbury Publishing) Keith M. Johnston’s Science Fiction Film: A…
British Film Design: A History
Laurie N. Ede, British Film Design: A History London: I.B. Tauris, 2010 ISBN-13: 978-1848851085 £15.99 (pb) 248pp (Review copy supplied by I.B. Tauris) A Himalayan convent created in mountainous Pinewood;…
Moving Color: Early Film, Mass Culture, Modernism
Joshua Yumibe, Moving Color: Early Film, Mass Culture, Modernism Rutgers University Press, New York, 2012. ISBN: 978-081355 2972 US$29.95(pb) 230pp (Review copy supplied by Rutgers University Press) Joshua Yumibe’s Moving…
New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images
Robert Sinnerbrink, New Philosophies of Film: Thinking Images Continuum, 2012 ISBN: 978-144115343-2 US$36.99 (pb) 264pp (Review copy supplied by Bloomsbury Publishing) Robert Sinnerbrink's New Philosophies of Film is an introduction…
The Neorealist body in Postwar Italian cinema
Karl Schoonover, The Neorealist body in Postwar Italian cinema University of Minnesota Press, 2012 ISBN-13: 978-0816675555 US$25 (pb) 328pp (Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press) The scholarship on Italian…
Olivier Assayas
Kent Jones (ed.), Olivier Assayas Austrian Film Museum, 2012 ISBN: 978-3-901644-436 US$30.00 (pb) 256pp (Review copy supplied by the Austrian Film Museum) In the chapter on L’Heure d’été (Summer Hours,…
The Miracle Woman
Dan Callahan, The Miracle Woman Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012 ISBN13: 978-1617031830 US$35 (hb) 272pp In one of her more direct moments, Barbara Stanwyck has said, “Acting is as…
Jedda
Jane Mills, Jedda Currency Press, 2012 ISBN: 9780-86819-920-7 Au$16.95 (pb) 89pp (Review copy supplied by Currency Press) This ‘little book’ Jedda contains big ideas, conflicting ideas, ideas from the past…
Fashion in Film
Adrienne Munich(ed.) Fashion in Film Indiana University Press, 2011 ISBN: 978-0-253-22299-2 US$27.95(pb) 376pp (Review copy supplied by Indiana University Press) This is a joyful discovery: Fashion in Film, edited by…
Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece
Raymond Foery, Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy: The Last Masterpiece. Maryland and Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN 9780810877559 US $40.00 (hb) 187pp (Review copy supplied by Scarecrow Press) Alfred Hitchcock returned to…
Cinema’s Alchemist: The Films of Péter Forgács
Bill Nichols & Michael Renov (eds.), Cinema’s Alchemist: The Films of Péter Forgács Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011 ISBN: 0816648751 $US27.00 (pb) 320 pp (Review copy supplied by…
Film Trilogies: New Critical Approaches
Claire Perkins and Constantine Verevis (eds.),. Film Trilogies: New Critical Approaches Palgrave MacMillan, 2012 ISBN: 978-0-230-25031-4 US$80(hb) 264pp (Review copy supplied by Palgrave Macmillan) At a time when franchise films…
Shadow Economies of Cinema: Mapping Informal Film Distribution
Ramon Lobato, Shadow Economies of Cinema: Mapping Informal Film Distribution London: British Film Institute/Palgrave Macmillan, 2012 ISBN: 978-1-84457-411-7 US$85 (hb) 176pp (Review copy supplied by Palgrave Macmillan) Ramon Lobato opens…
Cinema and Experience: Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and Theodore Adorno
Miriam Bratu Hansen, Cinema and Experience: Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and Theodore Adorno University of California Press, 2012 ISBN: 978-05202656-08 US$29.95(pb) 408pp (Review copy supplied by University of California Press)…
South African Cinema 1896-2010
Martin Botha, South African Cinema 1896-2010 Bristol: Intellect, 2012 ISBN: 978-1-84150-458-2 US$50.00 (pb) 307pp (Review copy supplied by Intellect) “Taking an inclusive approach to South African film history, this volume…
David Lynch
Justus Nieland, David Lynch University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 2012 ISBN: 978-0-252-07851-4 US$22.00 (pb) 194 pp (Review copy supplied by University of Illinois Press) The films of David Lynch have…
The Canonisation of Junk (1982)
The motivations for this article originally had their genesis in a knee-jerk reaction to the barrage of bad rock journalism that is continuing to pick up momentum here in Melbourne.…
Caught … Sunless and The State of Things (1984)
Beyond six rivers and three mountain ranges rises Zora, a city that no one, having seen it, can forget. But not because, like other memorable cities, it leaves an unusual…
Hanging Here and Groping There: On Raúl Ruiz’s “The Six Functions of the Shot”
… I’m coming from something to that, and from that going to something. So I always did everything as an arc. I never did this without hanging here and groping…
The Art of Falling Apart: Petulia and the Fate of Richard Lester
Petulia (1968) sits at a crucial juncture in American/British director Richard Lester’s career. Some elements of its filigreed and somewhat hyperactive style relate it clearly to the often kinetic films…
Tending the Wounds of the Nation: Gender in Contemporary Iranian War Cinema
Black screen: indistinct voices: the sound of laboured breathing. Cut to the image of a young man, Ismael (Bahram Radan), his body writhing uncontrollably, overtaken by a sudden violent seizure.…