(08) cultureandrecreation.gov.au (Australian Film)

http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au
Australia’s Culture Portal: Film in Australia
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/film/

Another valuable link on the Australia’s Culture Portal (see annotated link number 7) is the article on Australian film. It offers a brief overview of the history of film in Australia, starting with the silent era and finishing with the New Wave in the 70s and more recent developments.

What is so special about this article and what distinguishes it from other film history links in this collection, is the fact that the movies in the text are links themselves: They mostly link directly to Australian Screen Online, “Australia’s audiovisual heritage online”, which is part of the National Film and Sound Archive. For each movie, there are several extracts and video clips watchable online, together with links to study guides.

Even if the history is not very detailed, the option to view a selection of clips on every film is very beneficial when writing a research paper. Sometimes there is just not enough time to watch every single movie in full length, other movies (for example, movies of the silent or early sound era) might not be easily available. Watching short extracts helps a lot to remember the films later and get an overall idea of how the movie was like.

(04) UniSA Research Archive

http://arrow.unisa.edu.au/
UniSA Research Archive: A National Obsession: Australian Cinema and the National Identity since 1945
http://arrow.unisa.edu.au:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/unisa:26078

The UniSA Research Archive is a vast collection of research articles by scholars from the University of South Australia. Its goal is to preserve and assemble all the intellectual output of that University, to become more visible to the academic world and to make all the content easily available online, for everyone who wishes to learn about a certain topic.

The essay “National Obsession: Australian Cinema and the National Identity since 1945″ was written in 1990 by Jeff Crawford, and it was originally published in the journal Cabbages and Kings: Selected Essays in History and Australian Studies Vol. 18. It covers the early years of Australian cinema and the creation (or reinforcement) of national myths, and also the period after 1945 when the Australian film industry became dominated by an international market, though the fascination with the Australian past and national myths was ongoing.

As the Australian identity was (and probably still is) mainly a white, male identity (at least how it was reflected in the movies), the essay interestingly discusses the development of a female national identity and the cinematic depiction of minorities in Australia – other European minorities as well as the native Australians.

An appendix with all the films mentioned in the essay and a bibliography completes this very good reference concerning our main research topic.