Author Archive for: ‘Dana Polan’

Auteur desire

Uploaded 1 March 2001 An anecdote… In the 1980s, the film study program I was teaching in received authorization to make a new hire. One of the candidates we brought in, an expert in film genre theory, was a recent Ph.D. student from one of the major film schools in the US. During the interview period, she was asked, “If …

Read More

Contemporary World Television

John Sinclair and Graeme Turner (eds), Contemporary World Television. London: British Film Institute, 2004. ISBN: 1 84457 010 X 204 pp £15.99 (pb) (Review copy supplied by BFI Publishing) When I was an adolescent, one of my hobbies was shortwave radio, and a primary goal was to listen to faraway stations and then get them to send collectible postcards that …

Read More

Silent film sound

Rick Altman, Silent film sound, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0 231 11662 4 462pp US$50 (hb) (Review copy supplied by Columbia University Press) There’s a seeming simplicity to the title of Rick Altman’s majestic book – Silent fiilm sound with no academicizing subtitle to qualify it – but the apparent straightforwardness is quickly belied by a dazzling performance in …

Read More

Film – and Film Study – in the Age of Digitilisation

I want to thank you for including me in the inspiring and energetic life of film studies here in Australia. In my public talk for Monash (11 August 2016), I noted how, when I came to Australia now three decades ago, I was struck most by the intensity of engagement with cinema culture (and theory more generally). As an outsider, …

Read More

The French New Wave: An Artistic School

Michel Marie, The French New Wave: An Artistic School. New York & Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. ISBN: 0 631 22658 3 172 pp US $21.95 (pb) (Review copy supplied by Blackwell Publishing) It is one of the ironies of book publication in the area of cinema studies that so much seems to be produced each year – with no signs …

Read More