While this issue does not have a theme it does, by coincidence, have a number of articles and reviews which deal with archives (Edmondson and Verhoeff) and with documentary film and television.
Debate about archives has been on the cultural agenda in recent years. Issues 11.4 and 12.2 of the journal History of the Human Sciences were special issues on archives with most writers in each issue responding to, critiquing or gesturing towards Derrida’s Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. One of the areas of interest Screening the Past has chosen to cover since its inception has been debate about both theoretical issues related to archives and practical issues of archival policy in relation to screen and sound archives. In this spirit we publish two articles in this issue. The first is a polemical piece by Ray Edmondson, who has a long and passionate involvement in the various incarnations of the Screen and Sound Archive in Australia. Although his piece is Australian in focus we believe it raises issues of concern to many public institutions in an era unsympathetic to public institutions in general. Mary Debrett’s book review raises similar issues, but in this case about public service broadcasting. Nana Verhoeff’s article “Archival Poetics” raises more theoretical issues of interest to film scholars and archivists.
In coming months documentary film and television will be the subject of continuing debate at three conferences at least:
* The 11th Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand to be held in Adelaide in late November will have a number of sessions dealing with documentary, as well as many sessions of interest to readers of Screening the Past. We hope to be publishing some of the papers from this conference in a future issue.
* The next Visible Evidence Conference will be held in Marseille in late December and Derek Paget, whose article in this issue was based on his paper at the last Visible Evidence conference will be chairing a panel.
* The Australian International Documentary Conference will be held in Northern New South Wales in February 2003.
So clearly there continues to be a strong theoretical interest in documentary, an interest reflected in articles and reviews in this issue. Annie Goldson discusses her film Punitive Damage, in terms of links and parallels between the discourses of documentary and legal/ juridical practice, while Derek Paget raises some questions about the status of documentary in a “post documentary” era. The article by Derek Paget is something of an experiment: the article is a work in progress to which readers are invited to contribute. The article is presented as a number of theses, with commentaries to which readers are invited to respond. Responses will be moderated and then added to the site so that over a period of time we hope to generate a dialogue with readers interested in questions of documentary. Be sure to come back from time to time to see how this dialogue is progressing.
In our “Classics and Reruns” section we have an article by Lee Grieveson on film stars in early Hollywood (a further article on Korean Cinema has been delayed for technical reasons and will appear as soon as possible), and in our first release section Anna Dzenis discusses the work of Michael Mann. In addition there is a strong selection of book reviews in this issue.
Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to our Production Manager, Caroline Kruger, who is leaving the journal for other work. Caroline has been part of the production team since the very beginning of the journal and has contributed significantly to the journal through her speedy and efficient work. She will be difficult to replace.
Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.