New Australian Cinema: Sources and Parallels in American and British Film

by Brian McFarlane, Geoff Mayer

Overview

This book represents a new way of thinking about Australian cinema by asking where the origins of the new film lie. It begins by tracing the indebtedness of Australian cinema to the classical narrative style of Hollywood filmmaking, with its firm grasp of melodrama. Several films are studied in detail within this framework, including Picnic at Hanging Rock, Blood Oath, The Empty Beach, and Shame. The book continues by comparing the problems faced by "high" British cinema of the 1940s and 1950s with those faced by Australian cinema of the 1970s and the 1980s in the attempts by both countries to establish national film industries. Many parallels are drawn between the responses of British and Australian cinema to the overall dominance of Hollywood, despite the thirty-year gap between these two periods of filmmaking.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521387682
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/26/1992
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; Part I: 1. Introduction; Part II: 2. American Classical Cinema and the melodramatic tradition; 3. The melodrama of isolation and defeat: Australian cinema since Picnic at Hanging Rock; Part III: 4. Two booms: 'High' British cinema and new Australian cinema; 5. The films: Britain (1940–1960) and Australia (1970–1990); Part IV: 6. Observations and conclusions; Selected bibliography on Australian cinema; Index.