ENH2540

Film and national culture

B McFarlane

8 points
* 4 hours per week (includes screening time)
* First semester
* Caulfield

Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should be able to articulate, orally and in writing, their responses to a range of Australian films; to understand the idea of a `national' cinema from several points of view; to assess a range of theoretical and critical approaches; show themselves familiar with key written texts on new Australian cinema; and to analyse film texts in relation to the social reality and industrial organisation which constitute their context.

Synopsis This subject will explore film as a cultural product. Through a study of key texts (film and written texts), the subject will examine how a particular nation (Australia) is represented in the films of a particular period. Attention will be paid to recurring narrative paradigms and changing stylistic preoccupations in the new Australian cinema. The realist and literary strains of Australian cinema, along with such topics as the uses of melodrama, the sources of comedy, and the treatment of matters of class and gender will be canvassed throughout the semester. Films to be studied include Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli, Dead Calm, Strictly Ballroom and Shine.

Assessment Essay (2500 words): 40%
* Class participation including class paper, to be handed in in essay form (2000 words): 30%
* Final test (1500 words): 30%

Prescribed texts

McFarlane B and Mayer G New Australian cinema: Sources and parallels in American and British film CUP 1992

Recommended texts

O'Regan T Australian national cinema Routledge 1996
Turner G National fictions Allen and Unwin 1993