American–Australian Cinema: Transnational Connections

Description

This edited collection assesses the complex historical and contemporary relationships between US and Australian cinema by tapping directly into discussions of national cinema, transnationalism and global Hollywood. While most equivalent studies aim to define national cinema as independent from or in competition with Hollywood, this collection explores a more porous set of relationships through the varied production, distribution and exhibition associations between Australia and the US. To explore this idea, the book investigates the influence that Australia has had on US cinema through the exportation of its stars, directors and other production personnel to Hollywood, while also charting the sustained influence of US cinema on Australia over the last hundred years. It takes two key points in time—the 1920s and 1930s and the last twenty years—to explore how particular patterns of localism, nationalism, colonialism, transnationalism and globalisation have shaped its course over the last century. The contributors re-examine the concept and definition of Australian cinema in regard to a range of local, international and global practices and trends that blur neat categorisations of national cinema. Although this concentration on US production, or influence, is particularly acute in relation to developments such as the opening of international film studios in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and the Gold Coast over the last thirty years, the book also examines a range of Hollywood financed and/or conceived films shot in Australia since the 1920s. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii Where I’m Calling From: An American–Australian Cinema? (Adrian Danks, Stephen Gaunson, Peter C. Kunze)....Pages 1-15 Front Matter ....Pages 17-17 Rudimentary Modernism: Ken G. Hall, Rear-Projection and 1930s Hollywood (Adrian Danks)....Pages 19-39 Simulated Scenery: Travel Cinema, Special Effects and For the Term of His Natural Life (Leslie DeLassus)....Pages 41-66 Representations and Hybridizations in First Nation Cinema: Change and Newness by Fusion (Jane Mills)....Pages 67-90 Of Mothers and Madwomen: Mining the Emotional Terrain of Toni Collette’s Anti-Star Persona (Fincina Hopgood)....Pages 91-114 Front Matter ....Pages 115-115 Accented Relations: Mad Max on US Screens (Tessa Dwyer)....Pages 117-139 Talking Trash with Tarantino: Auteurism, Aesthetics and Authority in Not Quite Hollywood (Peter C. Kunze)....Pages 141-162 Australian Horror Movies and the American Market (Mark David Ryan)....Pages 163-182 The Terrible Terrace: Australian Gothic Reimagined and the (Inner) Suburban Horror of The Babadook (Amanda Howell)....Pages 183-201 Front Matter ....Pages 203-203 American Cartel: Block Bookings and the Paramount Plan (Stephen Gaunson)....Pages 205-225 The Multiplex Era (Jock Given)....Pages 227-252 “Zest to the jaded movie palate”: Wallace Worsley, Scott R. Dunlap and The Romance of Runnibede (Jeannette Delamoir)....Pages 253-274 Defining Neverland: P. J. Hogan, J. M. Barrie and Peter Pan in Post-Mabo Australia (Jerod Ra’Del Hollyfield)....Pages 275-294 Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby: Telling a National Iconic Story Through a Transnational Lens (Lesley Hawkes)....Pages 295-313 Back Matter ....Pages 315-333