(09) filmreference.com

http://www.filmreference.com
National Cinema, Political Economy, and Ideology
http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/National-Cinema.html

National Cinema is an essay by Christopher E. Gittings on the website filmreference.com. Though the website might not look very reliable (due to the advertisements and the obscure website and navigation structure), but the essay is properly referenced and written by a renowned author (he has published Canadian National Cinema: Ideology, Difference and Representation). The website further includes other essays on different films and film topics as well as biographies of directors and actors, writers and production artists.

The essay is split up into five parts on five separate sites: National Cinema (an introduction); National Cinema, Political Economy, and Ideology; Colonial/Post-Colonial Cinemas; National/Trans-National Cinemas; and Diasporic Cinemas (which includes the bibliography).

The second part (National Cinema, Political Economy, and Ideology) is the most interesting one concerning Australian national identity. Gittings draws on the work of Fredric Jameson to comment on ideology, government funding and national cinemas, and mentions Tom O’Regan’s concept of ‘indigenizing’ (where ‘smaller’ national cultures take the dominant Hollywood genres and transform them according to their own culture, like the Spaghetti western in Italy or the road movie – the Mad Max series – in Australia).

(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.

(03) cinephobia.com

http://www.cinephobia.com/
Stephen Rowley’s Essay Bin: Australian Cinema and National Identity
http://home.mira.net/~satadaca/australi.htm

Stephen Rowley’s essay “Australian Cinema and National Identity” is concerned with one of the fundamental questions regarding the ‘Australianness’ of the national cinema: Can there be a distinctly Australian cinema, with the Australian market being so small, and regarding the sheer quantity of imported American productions? Rowley briefly outlines the historical development of the relationship between Hollywood and the Australian cinema (from the attempt to clone Hollywood movies to more local, specifically Australian movies), and discusses the most important movies in that context.

Though the essay is neither very long nor very detailed, it is a good starting point before reading more in-depth essays. Sometimes it is hard not to loose track of the overall picture and of what the research is actually about, thus, basic, short essays provide a good foundation for further research.

Cinephobia.com is Stephen Rowley’s own website, where he has collected his academic writing (in the Essay Bin section) as well as film reviews and less academic articles in the In Depth-section. His essay “Australian Cinema and National Identity” is found in the old Essay Bin of his former website before he moved it to cinephobia.com. The website also features a blog and links to several Australian-based movie sites.

…so what is it about?

As I am studying Cultural Studies back in Germany, one of the reasons why I chose Australia for further studies was so I could learn about the Australian national identity. All national identities are constructions (or inventions, as Richard White would say), but I think Australia is a particularly interesting example: The development of the national identity happened very rapid, like in fast motion, in a rather isolated area, and the media (mainly TV and movies, but also newspapers, radio…) played a very important role in that creation. In this blog, I will try to find 25 links about how the Australian national identity was constructed in and through the media, how it was built up in the beginning as well as how it is continuously recreated in the media now.