Impact in Screen Culture
With the evolution over the past century of Australia’s screen culture, the industry through both its success and failures has fostered “An Australian film industry, [which] enables Australia to talk to itself, recognize itself and engage the attention of the world in doing so” (Dermody & Jacka, 1987, p 17). Three impactful films within Australian screen culture have been Muriel’s Wedding (House, Moorhouse & Hogan, 1994), Bra Boys (Abberton & DeSouza, 2007) and Samson and Delilah (Shelper & Thornton, 2009), which through their story, funding, release strategies and audience have become influential films for defining “Australian-ness” within Australian screen culture.
Muriel’s Wedding (House, Moorhouse & Hogan, 1994)
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The film prevails as a reflection of the Australian culture of the 90s in all its crass, gaudy and over-the-top suburban ways. Despite this unique and iconic look at urban Australia and Australian characters, the story highlights universal themes with Hogan saying of the film’s international success, “that was a big lesson to me: if you have the right story there is no such thing as 'too parochial’.” (Lowenstein, 2000) Though the popularity of films portraying a new urban “Australian-ness” in this era influenced films like The Castle (Chocolate & Sitch, 1997) for years to come, this new cultural identity was not embraced by all. There has been significant backlash towards Australian film within Australia, with many finding the ideas of Australia portrayed on screen limited and stereotypical, rather than portraying the full breadth and multi-cultured nature of Australia. Despite this occasional negative reception, nothing signifies the influence of a film on screen culture more than when dialogue enters the vernacular of a nation. The iconic line “You’re terrible, Muriel” highlights “an intangible outcome beyond anything money can buy, striking …show more content…
This is the highest opening gross for an Australian documentary ever. The sheer triumph of getting audiences into the cinema for a feature length documentary was followed by the distributor immediately increased the number of screens for the second week from 47 to 70. With this success the film was bought for distribution internationally by Berkela Films. This success also lead to the optioning of the story of the Abberton brothers by Image Entertainment and Universal
Hannie Rayson’s play ‘Hotel Sorrento’ explores the changing nature of Australian cultural identity. Rayson successfully perpetuates and challenges common Australian stereotypes in order to establish how the Australian National Identity has changed over time. She presents these stereotypes through the characters expectations of gender roles, attitudes towards Australian culture and the theme of ownership.
Australia has the terrible condition of having an essentially pointless and prefabricated idea of “Aussiness” that really has no relation to our real culture or the way in which we really see ourselves. We, however subscribe to these stereotypes when trying to find some expression of our Australian identity. The feature film, The Castle, deals with issues about Australian identity in the 1990’s. The film uses techniques like camera shots, language and the use of narration to develop conflict between a decent, old fashioned suburban family, the Kerrigans and an unscrupulous corporation called Airlink. Feature films like The Castle are cultural products because they use attitudes, values and stereotypes about what it means to be Australian.
The film Australia by Baz Luhrmann displayed numerous misrepresentation of Indigenous Australians. King George or better known as the “magic man” according to Nullah demonstrates an inaccurate and stereotypical view of Aboriginal Australians as being mysterious and spiritually powerful. Australia depicts Aboriginal Australians as being in touch with nature which is a positive stereotype. Nature plays an important role in the Aboriginal culture since they live off of the land by hunting, gathering, and farming the land. Aboriginal Australians were also portrayed as the “other” in this movie and their culture was viewed as being primitive compared to that of the white culture. Movies portraying Aboriginal Australians as being exotic, mysterious,
In The Pathos of Failure, Thomas Elsaesser explains the emergence of a new ideology within American filmmaking, which reflects a “fading confidence in being able to tell a story” (280) and the dissolution of psychologically relatable, goal-oriented characters. He elaborates that these unmotivated characters impede the “the affirmative-consequential model of narrative [which] is gradually being replaced by another, whose precise shape is yet to crystallize” (281). Christian Keathley outlined this shape in more detail in Trapped in the Affection Image, where he argued that shifting cultural attitudes resulted in skepticism of the usefulness of action (Keathley). In Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, this crisis of action is a key element of the main characters’ failure, because it stifles the execution of classical narrative and stylistic genre conventions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY An Introduction to Film Studies Jill Nelmes (ed.) Routledge 1996 Anatomy of Film Bernard H. Dick St. Martins Press 1998 Key Concepts in Cinema Studies Susan Hayward Routledge 1996 Teach Yourself Film Studies Warren Buckland Hodder & Stoughton 1998 Interpreting the Moving Image Noel Carroll Cambridge University Press 1998 The Cinema Book Pam Cook (ed.) BFI 1985 FILMOGRAPHY All That Heaven Allows Dir. Douglas Sirk Universal 1955 Being There Dir. Hal Ashby 1979
Small, Pauline. (2005) New Cinemas: journal of Contemporary Film Volume 3, Queen Mary, University of London
Neill, Alex. “Empathy and (Film) Fiction.” Philosophy of film and motion pictures : an anthology. Ed. Noel Carrol and Jinhee Choi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 247-259. Print.
Recent news with the country turning away Syrian refugees show how this unethical and immoral cycle of the dominant community's stance and fears towards refugees constantly repeats itself within Australia. Thus, the Shifting Heart's relevance in contemporary Australia is simply too hard to ignore and which I believe is the main reason for its return back into the theatre scene.
Within Australia Theatre the 1960’s created an opportunity for marginalised groups in society to be heard as they explored ideas regarding issues of racism and multiculturalism, challenging the concept of Australia being an egalitarianism society. David Williamson’s controversial play ‘The Removalist’ written in 1971 and Jack Davis’ play ‘No sugar’ written in 1985, bring to the fore a variety of societal concerns, which were, predominate within their contexts. As a class, we further developed these ideas to expound the social concerns of corruption and violence within Australian authority due to
As a student of Canadian film, I find great appreciation in films that work to culturally enrich Canada's movie screens. I feel that an honest portrayal of Canadian values and culture is beneficial not only by enhancing the credibility of Canada's film industry, but also by maintaining a voice for the customs held by the Canadian people. For these reasons, among others, it had become very easy for me to dislike Daryl Duke's 1978 film The Silent Partner. Based on the knowledge I had before sitting through numerous screenings of the film, I found a challenge in making any concretely positive statements about it, or the state of Canada's film industry at the time. I asked myself about the effect this film had on Canada's film industry, wondering primarily if the film's success in Canada - it won a total of 6 Canadian Film Awards including best feature and best director - came not from a poignant portrayal of Canadian culture, but rather from a "Canadianization" of the typical American thriller. I questioned the details of the film's formation, the choices made about talent, and the credibility of the script, and still I found myself forcing out any positive criticisms I might muster. As far as first impressions go, The Silent Partner's was not promising.
For much of the last four decades the dominant model for understanding Australian film has revolved around ‘national identity’; a framework which has shaped film output, culture, policy and criticism (Ryan, 2012). Australian film industry has been developed and supported by cultural policies and public subsidy that promote Australian stories, or rather the “representation and preservation of Australian culture, character and identity” (Maher, 1999). Subsequently, Australian films tended to emphasise “Australianness”, focusing on quality, culture and content, rather than entertainment’ and ‘commercialism’. Reflected through cultural themes, characters, use of landscape and cinematic style, numerous Australian filmmakers have developed national
The Aussie “underdog” theme is one of the most overused genres of Australian film and television. Whilst it is overused, some of the messages that are conveyed are both extremely motivational and providers of false hope. Take for instance the three films: “The Castle”, “Crackerjack” and “Ned Kelly”. Three classic Australian films that all follow the tried and tested formula of the Aussie “underdog” to differing extents. All three of these films can provide great levels of motivation whilst also promoting a sense of false hope at times.
Television became a major force that influenced Australian popular culture. It contributed to many changes in the Australian way of life during the 1950s and 1960s and Australia has constantly kept evolving often due to the introduction of television. Popular culture is the mainstream of ideas, products, attitudes and perspectives preferred by the majority of society. Australia’s popular culture was heavily influenced by foreign nations, which led to a very globalised country with many of its ideas and values from other countries, in particular the U.S. and U.K.
Comparative study of films accentuates eras of transition and their values to represent how the idea of Australianness was created. This is seen within the film The Adventures of Barry McKenzie as Bruce Beresford’s context is one of universally enforced values of Australianness in regards to men. For Beresford, he uses characters as different paradigms of his time. With the main character Barry being the embodiment of Australia’s national culture as an ocker, defined in Crawford’s (2009) article as a male who. Meanwhile, Aunt Edna embodied the patriarchal notions of the seventies, as for the consumption of alcohol. Through the characterization of these two individuals and their relationship, Beresford satirizes his context by contrasting these
... ed (BFI, 1990) we read … “contrary to all trendy journalism about the ‘New Hollywood’ and the imagined rise of artistic freedom in American films, the ‘New Hollywood’ remains as crass and commercial as the old…”