Modernism, Cinema, Adolescence: Another History for Teen Film
I’m allowed to go to picture shows, That is, if nurse is feeling able; But we only go to Mickey Mouse, I’m not allowed Clark Gable! It’s such an imposition…
Understanding Virginia: Quoting the Sources in Terrence Malick’s The New World
How much they err, that think every one which has been at Virginia understands or knows what Virginia is. - Capt. John Smith These words appear upon a black screen…
Normalcy in Jazz-Mad America: Clara Bow in My Lady of Whims
Earlier versions of this article were presented to the biennial conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand (November 2008) and to the University of Otago…
Vertigo and the Maelstrom of Criticism
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) is a site of cultural fascination. Brian de Palma has remade the film twice (Obsession [1976], Body Double [1984]), while it has been reworked or quoted…
Missing in Action, Caught on Film: Silent Film Actor “André de Beranger” Goes to War
Young Duke Cameron lies mortally wounded on a smoky, bloody Gettysburg battlefield. Suddenly, a northern youth appears above him, bayonet poised to strike him through. A glimmer of recognition passes…
Musical Modernism in Brian May’s Australian Film Scores
Introduction Film music has provided a useful space for the exploration of modernist composition. It is through this association with popular film texts that audiences who were otherwise dissociated from…
Giorgio Mangiamele’s Clay and the Beginnings of Art Cinema in Australia
“Clay…the least commercial work ever made in the history of cinema.”[1] Almost two decades ago Graeme Cutts quite rightly characterised Giorgio Mangiamele as “one of the forgotten directors of the…
Alternative Primary Sources for Studying Australian Television History: An Annotated List of Online Pro-Am Collections
Introduction It is possible to write many different histories of Australian television, and these different histories draw on different primary sources. The ABC of Drama, for example, draws on the…
Flash Gordon and the 1930s and 40s Science Fiction Serial
Motion picture serials, the forerunner of today’s serialized television dramas, have been around since the earliest days of the narrative cinema. Exhibitors rapidly realized that in order to assure continued…
A Portrait of Harry Potamkin
One page after creasing the cover of the anthology that informs this investigation, I was immediately drawn to a portrait of its author. It is a shadowy monochrome photograph of…