Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Landscapes Australia In motion pictures'
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1
Boden, Susan, and n/a. "'an unsettled state': the real and the imainary in Australian cinematic and designed landscapes." University of Canberra. Design, 2002. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20060426.161116.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis considers varied representations of landscape in
Australian narrative film and designed landscape. Landscape is
taken as an active concept that combines the associative meanings
of place and the dynamism of space. Sixteen film and designed
landscapes are examined to derive their landscape sources, forms
and ideas, using the methodology of 'contextual poetics', Each of
these landscapes is considered under a specific theme: landscape as
delight, absence, nation or hope.
In addition to detailing specific landscape responses by the
designers of the examined landscapes, this project aims to
contribute to an enhanced conversation about the effective, just
practice of landscape architecture.
The topic derives from a question central to landscape architectural
practice in a post-colonial context, such as Australia. In a cultural
setting where no single, agreed definition of landscape is allowed
by the conditions of its history, which versions do practitioners of
landscape architecture take up? What should be their limits, where
are their inspirations and whose landscape narratives are ignored in
these decisions?
2
Simpson, Catherine. "Imagined geographies: women's negotiation of space in contemporary Australian cinema, 1988-98." Thesis, Simpson, Catherine (2000) Imagined geographies: women's negotiation of space in contemporary Australian cinema, 1988-98. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2000. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/312/.
Full textAbstract:
Imagined Geographies: Women's Negotiation of Space in Contemporary Australian Cinema is an exploration of the nexus between gender and locale in films from the last decade, 1988-98. This thesis examines the way meaning is made through the negotiation of diverse geographies by central female protagonists in a selection of recent Australian feature films. The films I analyse were predominantly produced by female writers and/or directors.
In the context of Australian Cinema, locale is an area much talked about but little theorised. It is an issue which remains in the background of much scholarship and is often tangential to many arguments but rarely constructed as a central concern. Where it is foregrounded, as in Ross Gibson's work, it is reduced to the significance of landscape or 'natural locations' rather than examining the diversity of its manifestations.
Two notable but related spatial shifts have occurred in Australian cinema of the 1990s. The first is a change in industrial practice. Female artists are now creating spaces for themselves in mainstream feature filmmaking - spaces traditionally occupied by men. This trend is away from constructions of a distinctly feminist cinema or counter-cinema which was identifiable in the 1970s. Second, there is a shift in the character of on-screen space. The presence of growing numbers of women writers, directors and producers in the Australian film industry is shifting the cinema's focus away from traditional 'masculine' topographies - the pub, the prison and the outback - thus allowing explorations of other spaces and visions to develop. I am arguing therefore that there is a feminization ofspace occurring in Australian cinema.
In this thesis I investigate representations of so-called traditional 'feminine' or domestic domains. The place of the gendered body and embodiment in films is a central concern and is theorised in the first chapter. As we move through the thesis chapters, sexed bodies enacting gender in a variety of ways and in different zones - the car, the house, the suburb and the country town - will be explored. Through these analyses I examine the methods some film directors employ to problematize space in such a way that their work overcomes the limitations of its previously dominant representations. This thesis is primarily an attempt to open up the field of criticism to acknowledge the diversity of locales which exist within the rich tapestry of Australian Cinema.
3
Simpson, Catherine. "Imagined geographies : women's negotiation of space in contemporary Australian cinema, 1988-98 /." Simpson, Catherine (2000) Imagined geographies: women's negotiation of space in contemporary Australian cinema, 1988-98. PhD thesis, Murdoch University, 2000. http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/312/.
Full textAbstract:
Imagined Geographies: Women's Negotiation of Space in Contemporary Australian Cinema is an exploration of the nexus between gender and locale in films from the last decade, 1988-98. This thesis examines the way meaning is made through the negotiation of diverse geographies by central female protagonists in a selection of recent Australian feature films. The films I analyse were predominantly produced by female writers and/or directors.
In the context of Australian Cinema, locale is an area much talked about but little theorised. It is an issue which remains in the background of much scholarship and is often tangential to many arguments but rarely constructed as a central concern. Where it is foregrounded, as in Ross Gibson's work, it is reduced to the significance of landscape or 'natural locations' rather than examining the diversity of its manifestations.
Two notable but related spatial shifts have occurred in Australian cinema of the 1990s. The first is a change in industrial practice. Female artists are now creating spaces for themselves in mainstream feature filmmaking - spaces traditionally occupied by men. This trend is away from constructions of a distinctly feminist cinema or counter-cinema which was identifiable in the 1970s. Second, there is a shift in the character of on-screen space. The presence of growing numbers of women writers, directors and producers in the Australian film industry is shifting the cinema's focus away from traditional 'masculine' topographies - the pub, the prison and the outback - thus allowing explorations of other spaces and visions to develop. I am arguing therefore that there is a feminization ofspace occurring in Australian cinema.
In this thesis I investigate representations of so-called traditional 'feminine' or domestic domains. The place of the gendered body and embodiment in films is a central concern and is theorised in the first chapter. As we move through the thesis chapters, sexed bodies enacting gender in a variety of ways and in different zones - the car, the house, the suburb and the country town - will be explored. Through these analyses I examine the methods some film directors employ to problematize space in such a way that their work overcomes the limitations of its previously dominant representations. This thesis is primarily an attempt to open up the field of criticism to acknowledge the diversity of locales which exist within the rich tapestry of Australian Cinema.
4
Beare, Zachary Askari Kaveh. "Prime real estate : landscape, geography, and cultural anxieties in three western melodramas /." Online version, 2010. http://content.wwu.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/theses&CISOPTR=347&CISOBOX=1&REC=14.
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5
Peach, Ricardo. "Queer cinema as a fifth cinema in South Africa and Australia." University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/2100/425.
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Australia had the world’s first gay film festival at the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op in June 1976, part of a larger commemoration of the Stonewall Riots in New York City of 1969. In 1994, South Africa became the first country in the world to prohibit discrimination in its constitution on the basis of sexual orientation, whilst allowing for positive discrimination to benefit persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination. South Africa and Australia, both ex-British colonies, are used in this analysis to explore the way local Queer Cinematic Cultures have negotiated and continue to negotiate dominant social forces in post-colonial settings. It is rare to have analyses of Queer Cinematic Cultures and even rarer to have texts dealing with cultures outside those of Euro-America. This study offers a unique window into the formations of Queer Cinematic Cultures of two nations of the ‘South’. It reveals important new information on how sexual minorities from nations outside the Euro-American sphere have dealt with and continue to deal with longstanding Queer cinematic oppressions. A pro-active relationship between Queer representation in film and social-political action is considered by academics such as Dennis Altman to be essential for significant social and judicial change. The existence of Queer and other independent films in Sydney from the 1960s onward, impacted directly on sexuality, race and gender activism. In South Africa, the first major Queer film festival, The Out In Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1994, was instrumental in developing and maintaining a post-Apartheid Queer public sphere which fostered further legal change. Given the significant histories of activism through Queer Cinematic Cultures in both Australia and South Africa, I propose in this thesis the existence of a new genus of cinema, which I term Fifth Cinema. Fifth Cinema includes Feminist Cinema, Queer Cinema and Immigrant/Multicultural Cinema and deals with the oppressions which cultures engage with within their own cultural boundaries. It can be informed by First Cinema (classical, Hollywood), Second Cinema (Art House or dual national cinemas), Third and Fourth Cinema (cinemas dealing with the decolonisation of Third World and Fourth World people), but it develops its unique characteristics by countering internal cultural colonisation. Fifth Cinema functions as a heterognosis, where multi-dimensional representations around sexuality, race and gender are used to assist in broader cultural liberation.
6
Forscher, Helene. "Animals in the landscape : an analysis of the role of the animal image in representations of identity in selected Australian feature films from 1971 to 2001 /." Gold Coast, Queensland : Bond University, 2007. http://epublications.bond.edu.au/theses/forscher.
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Thesis (PhD) -- Bond University, 2007."A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy"-- t.p. Bibliography: leaves 266-281. Also available via the World Wide Web.
7
Crilly, Shane. ""Gods in our own world" representations of troubled and troubling masculinities in some Australian films, 1991-2001 /." Connect to this title online, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/37939.
Full textAbstract:
The dominance of male characters in Australian films makes our national cinema a rich resource for the examination of the construction of masculinities. This thesis argues that the codes of the hegemonic masculinities in capitalist patriarchal societies like Australia insist on an absolute masculine position. However, according to Oedipal logic, this position always belongs to another man. Masculine yet 'feminised,'identity is fraught with anxiety but sustained by the 'dominant fiction' that equates the penis with the phallus and locates the feminine as its polar opposite. This binary relationship is inaugurated in childhood when a boy must distinguish his identity from his mother, who, significantly, is a different gender. Being masculine means not being feminine. However, as much as men strive towards inhabiting the masculine position completely, this masquerade will always be exposed by the elements associated with femininity that are an inevitable part of the human experience. Yet, the more men are drawn to the feminine, the more they risk losing their masculine integrity altogether under the patriarchal gaze. Men, in this dualistic regime, are condemned to negotiate their identity haunted by the promises of the phallus and the fear of its loss. I begin with a model of masculine integrity represented in the image of an ideal father, Darryl Kerrigan, from The Castle and then proceed to problematise it through an examination of its excesses observed in the father of David Helfgott in Shine. In the second chapter I investigate two films that represent mothers as the principal threat to masculine integrity: Death in Brunswick and Proof. Both films reveal a misogynistic impetus, which is expressed as violence against women in The Boys, the sole focus of my middle chapter. With misogyny and violence still resonating, I follow the contours of my argument through an examination of Chopper and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in the fourth chapter, where I emphasise the performative nature of identity, before arriving at a discussion of men and their relationships in the final chapter (Mullet, Praise, and Thank God He Met Lizzie).Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Humanities, 2004.
8
Weightman, Elise. "The mirror has many faces : an exploration of women's aesthetics in contemporary mainstream Australia." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1999.
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This thesis investigates the concept of "women's aesthetics", as distinct from "feminine" or "feminist" aesthetics, asserting that an original and liberated women's film practice and spectatorship may be realised, in the late 1990s, by reinterpreting women's aesthetics as diverse social and artistic processes. Aesthetic concepts such as pleasure, value, art and sensory experience are also
tested in this study to establish their relevance to feminist discourses on film, the wider culture and society. The study also argues that the aesthetics of Australian women filmmakers working in mainstream cinema may be
characterised by certain social and artistic processes. Further, it is suggested that these women achieve a more liberated and empowered artistic practice through their distinctive and personal explorations of particular aesthetic processes. Through case studies of films by Gillian Armstrong, Jane Campion, Samantha Lang and Rachel Perkins, certain characteristics of women's aesthetics are
identified, and their power and relevance for Australian women filmmakers are evaluated. While focusing its investigation on the concept of "women's aesthetics", this
study also interrogates recent and seminal feminist film theory as well as the historical development of Australian national cinema, establishing a context and justification for the exploration of women's aesthetics. The revised, inclusive concept of women's aesthetics is then applied to a
practical project, in which my own artistic processes are explored through the production of three short films. This practical component is reported and critiqued to establish the relevance of the concept of women's aesthetics to my
own film practice. Finally, this thesis concludes that the concept and practice of women's aesthetics as a negotiated process can be used to promote and develop a more relevant, political and productive relationship between women, mainstream cinema and the wider culture and society.
9
Beeton, Sue 1956. "Film-induced tourism impacts and consequences." Monash University, National Centre for Australian Studies, 2002. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/7570.
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10
Athique, Adrian Mabbott. "Non-resident cinema transnational audiences for Indian films /." Access electronically, 2005. http://www.library.uow.edu.au/adt-NWU/public/adt-NWU20060511.140513/index.html.
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11
Emerson, John. "The representation of the colonial past in French and Australian cinema, from 1970 to 2000 /." Title page, contents and abstract only, 2002. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phe536.pdf.
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12
Leotta, Alfio. "Touring the screen : New Zealand film geographies and the textual tourist /." e-Thesis University of Auckland, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2292/5762.
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Thesis (PhD--Film, Television and Media Studies)--University of Auckland, 2009."A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Dotor of Philosophy in Film, Television and media Studeis, the University of Auckland, 2009." Includes bibliographical references.
13
Reid, Mary Anne. "Success factors in Australian cinema in the 1990s." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2000.
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The main body of this research thesis employs a combination of case study and national data to discuss the concept of 'success' in relation to the Australian film industry in the 1990s. Faced with the problem of measuring 'success', my approach has been to apportion success into 'commercial' and 'critical', in relation to three Australian films - Muriel's Wedding, Love And Other Catastrophes and Kiss or Kill - each of which is considered to have been successful in one way or another. The purpose of these case studies is to demonstrate that films can be successful at different levels - niche or mainstream - and that in commercial terms, 'successful for whom?' depends on where one stands in the long chain of creators, marketers and exhibitor/broadcasters of a single film.
14
Enders, Michael Leonard. "Gettin' acquainted : film, ethnicity and Australian society." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1996. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/36279/1/36279_Enders_1996.pdf.
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This thesis uses a cultural studies- based social- cultural- historical methodology to
compare changes in depictions of ethnicity in selected Australian feature films
produced from 1930 to 1995 to changes in Australian immigration policy over the
same period. The aim is to identify the relationship between feature film
depictions and the societies which produced them. The study will show that
depictions of ethnicity in Australian feature films have progressed through three
phases in line with the changes in Australian immigration policy from 'white
Australia' (1930-1946) to assimilation (194 7 -1971) to multiculturalism (1972-
present) .
The study also proposes a model of 'cultural absorption' as better alternative than
'reflection' to explain the means by which social-cultural beliefs and values are
transferred from society to feature films. The results of this study confirm that
the myths and social cultural beliefs and values of a society can be identified by
analysing the cultural artefacts, such as feature films, produced by that society.
This means that it is possible to identify the myths, beliefs and values of past
moments in Australian social history by analysing feature films produced by that
society. Identifying changes in society and culture and the mechanisms which
brought them about provides a means of better understanding contemporary
society and culture and how future changes may affect social and cultural
evolution.
15
Smith, Keith. "Kodak's worst nightmare Super 8 in the digital age: A cultural history of Super 8 filmmaking in Australia 1965-2003." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2004. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1612.
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This project charts the extraordinary history of the Super 8 film medium, a popular amateur home movie format first introduced in 1965 and largely assumed to have disappeared with the advent of home video technologies in the early 1980's. Kodak's Worst Nightmare investigates the cultural history of the Super 8 medium with an emphasis on its (secret) life since 1986. lt asks how (and why) an apparently obsolete consumer technology has survived some 35 years into a digital future despite the emergence of technologically-advanced domestic video formats and Eastman Kodak's sustained attempts since the mid-80s to suppress, what is for it, a patently unprofitable product line. Informed by the work of Heath (1900), Zimmermann (1995), and Carroll (1996), this project takes the unusual step of isolating a specific amateur film medium as its object of study at the centre of a classic 'nature vs. nurture' debate. Arguing against a popular essentialist position which attributes the longevity of Super 8 to its unique, irreplaceable aesthetic, Kodak's Worst Nightmare proposes that Super 8 film has been a contested site in a social, cultural, political, and economic nexus where different agencies have appropriated the medium through the construction of discourses which have imposed their own meanings on the use and consumption of this cultural product. In an extraordinary cycle of subjugation, resistance and incorporation, this project finds that the meanings and potentials of Super 8 have been progressively colonised by differing institutions - firstly by Eastman Kodak ('domestic' Super 8), secondly by the alternative,independent film movement ('oppositional' Super 8 and 'indie' Super 8), and finally by the mainstream film and television industry ('professional' Super 8"). In an amazing contradiction, it is argued that Super 8 in its current incarnation has emerged as the exact opposite of Kodak's original discursive construction of its amateur status - it has become a professional medium for commercial production. Drawing together related work in the histories of domestic photography and communications technologies, and the cultural practice of everyday life, this project contributes to an area which is seriously undertheorised in the literature of film theory and cultural studies- the social, political and cultural role of amateur film technologies.
16
Piper, Paige M. "Deathly Landscapes: The Changing Topography of Contemporary French Policier in Visual and Narrative Media." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469133497.
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17
McKenzie, Susan M., and n/a. "Canadian and Australian Feature Film Policy in Perspective: A Comparative Study from 1968 to 1998." Griffith University. School of Arts, Media and Culture, 2004. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20040804.142852.
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This comparative study is an investigation into the changing concerns of feature film policy in Canada and Australia from 1968 to 1998. Its purpose is to determine how similar policy initiatives have produced divergent results in two economically, culturally and socially similar nations. The inquiry's aim is to establish what financial, political and geographic variables affect the application of feature film policy. While resemblances between these nations justify the contrasting of comparable feature film policy initiatives, differences in outcomes suggest that these nations are not entirely alike. Therefore, rather than following the leads of comparable national agencies, film policy makers in Canada and Australia need to concentrate on conditions specific to their own particular situation.
18
Choudhuri, Sucheta Mallick Kopelson Kevin Kumar Priya. "Transgressive territories queer space in Indian fiction and film /." Iowa City : University of Iowa, 2009. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/346.
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Barnett, Vanessa. "Tasha: A practice-based problematisation of Australian comedy cinema’s representation of gender, family and nationhood." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2014. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1411.
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Between 2007 and 2012, 140 fictional feature films were financed with the assistance of Australian film funding bodies. Of these 140 films, only 31 featured female protagonists and of these 31 films, only 8 were comedies (see Appendix B). These figures show statistically, Tasha, the creative film component of this research project, is not a typical Australian comedy film; it is the story of Tasha, an unemployed girl from Girrawheen in her early twenties, who has lost her sense of identity. As Australian films such as Little Fish¸ Candy, Jedda and Muriel’s Wedding would suggest, this is certainly not an uncommon premise in Australian national cinema. However, this is not all there is to know about Tasha; she is preoccupied, not by a love interest or by a drug addiction, but by ninjutsu, and vigilantism. This is where Tasha finds its unique approach to Australian cinema’s historic treatment of the woman-centred narrative. That said, beneath Tasha’s unconventional surface arguably lies a truly Australian comedy film.
The exegesis component of this project re-interprets Bazin’s question, “Qu'est-ce que le cinéma?” (What is cinema?), with a theoretical framework inspired by Australian film theorist Tom O’Regan’s influential text, Australian National Cinema. The exegesis begins by looking at Australian national cinema as a whole, then narrowing the focus to Australian comedy cinema. O’Regan (1996) describes Australian cinema as a national cinema; a cinema that embodies Australian culture, society and history. The focus is on Australian comedy film texts, and their social, political and cultural contexts. Tasha, the creative film project, is what O’Regan would term a “problematisation” of Australian comedy cinema.
The key argument of this project is that Australian national comedy films are uniquely Australian, cinematic explorations of individual identity, socio-cultural identity, landscape and family. Australia laughs about what it knows best, these four narrative and aesthetic preoccupations being central to Australian socio-cultural values and attitudes, to understanding the concept of Australianness. Australian comedy cinema is a problematic genre unto itself. The theoretical component of this project is a profile of Australian comedy cinema’s homogenised representation of Australianness. Tasha is then presented as an alternative. This investigation aims to both improve, and demonstrate an understanding of Australian comedy cinema as a problematisation of gender, culture, landscape, family and identity.
Tasha responds to the research question, “What is Australian comedy cinema?” by revealing that even an Australian action comedy with exciting stunts and fight scenes, is still a story of an individual’s sense of identity, family, and place. Such stories are arguably the hallmark of Australian comedy cinema; this carries a uniquely Australian sense of quirkiness. It remains the domain of the underdog: the battlers, larrikins, and of course the ockers. It still carries the same messages; never forget who you are, who your friends and family are, or where you came from. Despite its unconventional narrative, subject matter, soundtrack and aesthetics, Tasha proves to be no exception; it is still easily identified as a truly Australian comedy film.
20
Emerson, John James. "The representation of the colonial past in French and Australian cinema, from 1970 to 2000 / by John James Emerson." 2002. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phe536.pdf.
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Includes filmography: leaves 252-256. Bibliography: leaves 241-251. This thesis compares the representation of colonial history in the cinema of France and Australia since 1970. Films examined all had historical colonial settings, a narrative focus principally on aspects of the colonisation process and a director who was descended from former colonisers. It concludes that there are few sustained attempts to confront and resolve the problematic aspects of colonialism's legacy. The tendency to contain the representation of the colonial past within a fictional framework has the inevitable consequence of masking history and avoiding the necessity for dealing with it.
21
Hopgood, Fincina Elizabeth. "From affliction to empathy: melodrama and mental illness in recent films from Australia and New Zealand." 2006. http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/2859.
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The subject matter of mental illness has fascinated artists and writers for centuries. Filmmakers have responded in diverse and innovative ways to the artistic challenge of portraying mental illness. In this thesis, I focus on the representations of mental illness in six recent films from Australia and New Zealand: Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989), An Angel at My Table (Campion, 1990), Bad Boy Bubby (Rolf de Heer, 1993), Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994), Angel Baby (Michael Rymer, 1995) and Shine (Scott Hicks, 1996). In each film, the protagonist is diagnosed, or treated by others, as mentally ill. Mental illness is portrayed as an affliction which the protagonist struggles to overcome. I argue that these films cultivate a relationship of empathy between the mentally ill character and the spectator. Whereas the related emotion of sympathy involves feeling sorry for someone, empathy involves feeling with that person; in other words, rather than feel for these mentally ill characters, we are invited to feel like they do. (For complete abstract open document)
22
Johinke, Rebecca Jane. "Blokes and cars : the construction of masculinities in Australian film / Rebecca Jane Johinke." Thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/114413.
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This thesis examines the construction of masculinities in the genre of Australian film known as 'car crash' films. A number of film texts are used to examine how representations of vehicular masculinity are validated and how heroism is often associated with mastery of a motor vehicle. It contends that gender-technology relation constructs technology as masculine culture, the automobile often pivotal in rites of passage and manifestations of masculinity because other means to perform adulthood and gender are frequently unattainable. Membership of the masculine hegemony can appear within reach when behind the wheel of a 'hot' automobile that signifies power, freedom, escape, conspicuous consumption and control. The male characters in car crash films look to the streets and to the screen to enact blatent constructions of an overt mechanical masculinity, and the performative journey is mapped.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 2002
23
Crilly, Shane. "'Gods in our own world': representations of troubled and troubling masculinities in some Australian films, 1991-2001." Thesis, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2440/37939.
Full textAbstract:
The dominance of male characters in Australian films makes our national cinema a rich resource for the examination of the construction of masculinities. This thesis argues that the codes of the hegemonic masculinities in capitalist patriarchal societies like Australia insist on an absolute masculine position. However, according to Oedipal logic, this position always belongs to another man. Masculine yet 'feminised,'identity is fraught with anxiety but sustained by the 'dominant fiction' that equates the penis with the phallus and locates the feminine as its polar opposite. This binary relationship is inaugurated in childhood when a boy must distinguish his identity from his mother, who, significantly, is a different gender. Being masculine means not being feminine. However, as much as men strive towards inhabiting the masculine position completely, this masquerade will always be exposed by the elements associated with femininity that are an inevitable part of the human experience. Yet, the more men are drawn to the feminine, the more they risk losing their masculine integrity altogether under the patriarchal gaze. Men, in this dualistic regime, are condemned to negotiate their identity haunted by the promises of the phallus and the fear of its loss. I begin with a model of masculine integrity represented in the image of an ideal father, Darryl Kerrigan, from The Castle and then proceed to problematise it through an examination of its excesses observed in the father of David Helfgott in Shine. In the second chapter I investigate two films that represent mothers as the principal threat to masculine integrity: Death in Brunswick and Proof. Both films reveal a misogynistic impetus, which is expressed as violence against women in The Boys, the sole focus of my middle chapter. With misogyny and violence still resonating, I follow the contours of my argument through an examination of Chopper and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in the fourth chapter, where I emphasise the performative nature of identity, before arriving at a discussion of men and their relationships in the final chapter (Mullet, Praise, and Thank God He Met Lizzie).Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Humanities, 2004.
24
Bryson, Ian. "Bringing to light : a history of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Film Unit." Master's thesis, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/144491.
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Simpson, Elizabeth Anne. "Dark landscapes and destructive forces : subversion of the warrior-hero archetype in the myth-destroying terrain of the Vietnam War." Thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/687.
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Peters-Little, Frances. "The return of the noble savage by popular demand : a study of Aboriginal television documentary in Australia." Master's thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/110389.
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This thesis, entitled The Return of the Noble Savage: By Popular Demand, is written after
several years of being an avid Aboriginal television watcher, filmmaker, and activist. It is
based on research on a neglected topic and in response to the consistent attack from well-meaning
critics, in an attempt to argue for the complexity of the meanings generated on
television, and for the rights of the individual filmmaker in representation.
In myth-making about Australian Aborigines there has been a consistent paradigm of
opposing poles-noble and savage, good blacks and bad blacks, primitive and civilised, real
and unreal. Oscillating between these two poles are all kinds of imaginings of Aboriginal
identity, politics and desires for truthful representation.
When early documentary filmmakers began to film Aborigines they disregarded the
Aboriginal audience, and spoke rather to themselves and to white audiences whom, for all
kinds of reasons, they wanted to inform about Aborigines. In contrast, there are in the
Australian television industry today many more Aboriginal people making films than there
have ever been, and a greater recognition of the existence of Aboriginal television audiences.
Aboriginal filmmakers have been backed by a history of radical politics and by the efforts of
non-Aboriginal filmmakers.
The recent marriage between Aboriginal filmmakers and mainstream television has been
neglected by most commentators and scholars. Critics ignore the efforts and progress made
by mainstream television and documentary filmmakers. They have written about television
without making references to Aborigines; and they have written about Aborigines without
making reference to television. This is startling when one considers the invisibility of
Aborigines before television, and the difference television has made.
The thesis also addresses the problem that in the current climate, new pressures being brought
to bear on filmmakers making documentary films on Aboriginal topics. Because they do not
take into account the nature of filmmaking, or the rights of individual filmmakers, these
pressures are infringing upon the rights not only of white but also Aboriginal filmmakers.
This pressure has swung the pendulum from savage to noble imagery, the latter of which is
just as unrealistic and untrue as the former. It also requires Aboriginal audiences and
filmmakers to protect and uphold a particular vision of Aboriginality, and denies them the
right to critique and defend themselves.
27
Hooton, Fiona Art History & Art Education College of Fine Arts UNSW. "The impact of the counterculture on Australian cinema in the mid to late 20th century." 2007. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/41008.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis discusses the impact of the counterculture on Australian cinema in the late 20thcentury through the work of the Sydney Underground Film group, Ubu. This group, active between 1965 -1970, was a significant part of an underground counter culture, to which many young Australians subscribed. As a group, Ubu was more than a rat bag assemblage of University students. It was an antipodean aspect of an ongoing artistic and political movement that began with the European avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century and that radically transformed artistic conventions in theatre, painting, literature, photography and film. Three purposes underpin this thesis: firstly to track the art historical links between a European avant-garde heritage and Ubu. Experimental film is a genre that is informed by cross art form interrelations between theatre, painting, literature, photography and film and the major modernist aesthetic philosophies of the last century. Ubu's revolutionary aesthetic approaches included political resistance and the involvement of audiences in the production of art. Their creative wellspring drew from: Alfred Jarry, Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, Fluxus, Conceptual and Pop art. This cross fertilization between the arts is critical to understanding not only the Australian experimental movement but the history of contemporary image making. The second purpose is to fill a current void of research about early Australian Experimental film. This is a significant gap given it was a national movement with many international connections. The counterculture movement also contains many major figures in Australian art history. These individuals played their parts in the Sydney Push, Oz magazine and the activities of the Yellow House and have since become important multi arts practitioners and commentators. Thirdly, the thesis attempts to evaluate Ubu's political and social agenda for the democratization of film appreciation through their objectives of: production, exhibition, distribution and debate of experimental film both nationally and internationally. Ultimately the group would succeed in these objectives and in winning the war on repressive censorship laws. Their influence has informed the practice of many of Australia's current film heavy weights. Two key films have been selected for analysis, It Droppeth as the Gentle Rain (1963) and Newsfront (1978). The first looks forward to Ubu's contemporary practices and political agenda while the second demonstrates their longer term influences on mainstream cinema.