Free at Last: Robert Connolly’s Balibo Adrian Danks July 2009 MIFF Premiere Fund/Post-Punk Dossier, Special Dossiers Robert Connolly’s Balibo (2009) is one of the strongest and best Australian films of recent years, and a welcome, committed return to the territor...
Dogs in Space David Nichols July 2009 MIFF Premiere Fund/Post-Punk Dossier, Special Dossiers In early 1985, during promotional interviews for his new group, Beargarden, Sam Sejavka told Juke magazine’s Robbie Coates that “Richard Lowenstei...
Interview with Richard Lowenstein Rolando Caputo and Peter Tapp July 2009 MIFF Premiere Fund/Post-Punk Dossier, Special Dossiers This is an edited version of an interview originally published in Filmviews, No. 131 (Autumn 1987), pp. 2-7. It is reproduced with the kind permis...
Post-Punk and Vision Jon Dale July 2009 MIFF Premiere Fund/Post-Punk Dossier, Special Dossiers Post-punk’s discursive watchword was “demystification”: unpack the “meaning behind the moaning” (as Public Image Ltd’s John Lydon would sing in “C...
Notes for a Critique of Going Down John Flaus July 2009 John Flaus Dossier, MIFF Premiere Fund/Post-Punk Dossier, Special Dossiers When his 27A won the Australian Film Award for Best Fiction Film in 1974, producer Haydn Keenan brandished the trophy at the august assembly and decla...
Go-Go Gorilla: Another Time, Another Place: Making My Film at Swinburne Hugh Marchant July 2009 MIFF Premiere Fund/Post-Punk Dossier, Special Dossiers The summary of my student short film, Meanwhile Elsewhere (1981), in the National Film & Sound Archive catalogue reads: An experimental film ...
Michel pour mémoire Ewa Rudling April 2009 In Memoriam: Michel Fournier 1945-2008, Special Dossiers In order to understand Michel Fournier’s personality, it helps to know that his silent, five-hour-long, abstract, black-and- white-feature, A quoi...
Remembering Michel Fournier Sally Shafto April 2009 In Memoriam: Michel Fournier 1945-2008, Special Dossiers This past January while in Paris I tried to contact Michel Fournier, Philippe Garrel’s legendary cameraman on six films, from Marie pour Mémoire (...
Bel homme, adieu! Patrick Deval April 2009 In Memoriam: Michel Fournier 1945-2008, Special Dossiers In April 1968, I was at the Hyères Film Festival to present my philosophical short film, Héracilite l’Obscur (1967). Philippe Garrel was there wit...
Richard Franklin: Director/Producer Scott Murray and Tom Ryan July 2008 Dossier on Australian Exploitation, Special Dossiers An extensive interview originally published in 1980 with the director of the classic road-movie thriller Roadgames. Written by Everett de Roche and starring Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis.
The Two Bazzas Keith Connolly July 2008 Dossier on Australian Exploitation, Special Dossiers Combined review of Bruce Beresford’s two early seminal comedies of the grotesque, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and Barry McKenzie Holds His Own.
Dead-End Drive-In Philippa Hawker July 2008 Dossier on Australian Exploitation, Special Dossiers Review of Brian Trenchard-Smith’s 1986 apocalyptic thriller. One of Quentin Tarantino’s favourite Aussie movies.
Everett de Roche Paul Davies July 2008 Dossier on Australian Exploitation, Special Dossiers Extract from a 1980 interview with the screenwriter of Long Weekend.
Turkey Shoot Geoff Mayer July 2008 Dossier on Australian Exploitation, Special Dossiers Review of the now infamous 1982 violent hunter-versus-hunted film directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith and produced by Antony I. Ginnane.
Russell Mulcahy Jim Schembri July 2008 Dossier on Australian Exploitation, Special Dossiers A 1984 interview with the director of the Aussie outback baroque thriller Razorback.
Long Weekend Scott Murray July 2008 Dossier on Australian Exploitation, Special Dossiers Review of the Everett de Roche-scripted ecological thriller directed by Colin Eggleston.
Charles Bitsch’s Filmography and Publications Sally Shafto March 2008 Special Dossiers, The New Wave Remembered: Focus on Charles Bitsch Partial Filmography of Bitsch’s own films 1953 episode of Les Trois rendez-vous 1963 “Cher baiser”, sketch film in Les Baisers 1964 “Lucky la cha...
Interview with Orson Welles André Bazin and Charles Bitsch March 2008 Special Dossiers, The New Wave Remembered: Focus on Charles Bitsch In the first decade of the Cahiers era, Bitsch conducted many interviews with Hollywood directors. He has expressed great fondness for this particular one – because of Welles and in memory of his co-interviewer, the legendary André Bazin.
The House or the Chaos Luc Moullet March 2008 Special Dossiers, The New Wave Remembered: Focus on Charles Bitsch An elegant essay in praise of Bitsch’s films, written by fellow Cahiers du Cinéma critic and French New Wave director Luc Moullet.
Introduction to Dossier Sally Shafto March 2008 Special Dossiers, The New Wave Remembered: Focus on Charles Bitsch When exactly is the 50th anniversary of the French Nouvelle Vague? Sally Shafto provides a brief rationale.
Interview with Charles Bitsch Sally Shafto March 2008 Special Dossiers, The New Wave Remembered: Focus on Charles Bitsch Wide-ranging interview in which Bitsch discusses his youthful cinéphilia, his association with Cahiers du Cinéma, and his work with Jacques Rivette, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, et al. So evocative, one can almost relive history in the making through his words.
Nina Menkes: The Warrior and her Jiang Hu Bérénice Reynaud March 2008 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Nina Menkes An insightful analysis of Nina Menkes’ films and the many distinctive virtues they possess.
Interview with Nina Menkes David E. James March 2008 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Nina Menkes Further illuminating insights come from the voice of the filmmaker herself, who was recently the subject of a retrospective at the 2007 VIENNALE.
Hitchcock and Hume Revisited: Fear, Confusion and Stage Fright John Orr May 2007 Alfred Hitchcock Revisited, Special Dossiers “This essay is a return to the scene of the crime.” The author of Hitchcock and 20th Century Cinema re-evaluates his low opinion of Stage Fright, and discovers that the affinities between Hitchcock’s cinema and the philosopher David Hume run far deeper than he had first imagined.
The Sixties, the Thriller and the Judge Richard Franklin May 2007 Alfred Hitchcock Revisited, Special Dossiers Alfred Hitchcock had plans to develop a project titled No Bail for the Judge, but when that faulted he turned his attention to Psycho … and changed the course of the thriller genre.
Alfred Hitchcock and John Buchan: The Art of Creative Transformation Tony Williams May 2007 Alfred Hitchcock Revisited, Special Dossiers Alfred Hitchcock’s film of John Buchan’s novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps, was one of his most successful, and he repeatedly used the story template in other films, such as North by Northwest. But Hitchcock showed little empathy for Buchan’s ideology.
Memories are Made of This: Bill Morrison’s The Film of Her Ursula Böser November 2006 Special Dossiers, The Films of Bill Morrison An essay on one of Morrison’s classic found-footage documentaries. A story of ‘forgotten films’ and ‘forgotten careers’, and the dynamics of remembering.
Trajectories of Decay: An Interview with Bill Morrison Maximilian Le Cain and Barry Ronan November 2006 Special Dossiers, The Films of Bill Morrison Bill Morrison is one of the most distinctive voices in the independent film scene. On the occasion of a retrospective of his films at the Cork Film Festival in Ireland, he speaks about the practice of his found-footage æsthetic.
Jean-Luc Godard Exhibition: Travel(s) in Utopia, Jean-Luc Godard 1946-2006, In Search of a Lost Theorem Alex Munt July 2006 Special Dossiers, The Godard Museum Insightful reflections on the major Godard exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Jean-Pierre Melville: Encounters with Conscience Pedro Blas Gonzalez July 2006 Special Dossiers, Three Auteurs Philosophical meditations on the existential and moral landscape of Melville’s cinema.
On Painting and History in Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma Sally Shafto July 2006 Special Dossiers, The Godard Museum “What are all these paintings doing in a history of cinema?” The author gives an answer in her analysis of Godard’s monumental video work, which approximates André Malraux’s concept of the imaginary museum.
The Last Man: An Epitaph for Sam Peckinpah Benjamin Kerstein July 2006 Special Dossiers, Three Auteurs “His femininity is the femininity of the witness. Of the artist. Of the eye behind the camera.” A radical reappraisal of Peckinpah’s œuvre.
Otto Preminger and the End of Classical Cinema John Orr July 2006 Special Dossiers, Three Auteurs One of Hollywood’s finest exponents of mise en scène, Preminger, it can justly be argued, is instrumental in defining the transition from classical to modernist cinema.
Situations over Stories: Café Lumière and Hou Hsiao-hsien Tony McKibbin May 2006 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Hou Hsiao-hsien Made in homage to the cinema of Ozu, McKibbin argues that the film is far more than a simple tribute to the legacy of the Japanese master.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Optics of Ephemerality Charles R. Warner May 2006 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Hou Hsiao-hsien Detailed analysis of the poetics of Hou’s celebrated observational long-take aesthetic.
Hou Hsiou-hsien’s Urban Female Youth Trilogy Daniel Kasman May 2006 Special Dossiers, Spotlight on Hou Hsiao-hsien Kasman states the case for considering Daughter of the Nile, Good Men, Good Woman and Millennium Mambo as a ‘trilogy on the trails and tribulations of modern, urban, female Taiwanese youth’.