Five Metaphors for a Film Festival: The 56th Sydney Film Festival Matthew Clayfield December 2009 Festival Reports "Writers who have nothing to say always strain for metaphors to say it in." – Florence King 1. Anorexics, bulimics and the smorgasbord For every metaphor for the cinema – Godard's goodwill for a meeting,...
Andrzej and Krystyna go Boating: Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water Matthew Clayfield March 2008 CTEQ Annotations on Film Nóz w wodzie/Knife in the Water (1962 Poland 94 mins) Prod Co: Zespol Filmowy “Kamera” Prod: Stanislaw Zylewicz Dir: Roman Polanski Scr: Jerzy Skolimowski, Jakub Goldberg, Roman Polanski Phot: Jerzy Lipm...
Cinema Without Borders: The 56th Melbourne International Film Festival Matthew Clayfield October 2007 Festival Reports 25 July - 12 August 2007 An international film festival is kind of like an extended news bulletin – a dispatch wired back to us from the frontlines of the cinema. I am loath to call it a window on the wo...
Notes on the Death of Beauty, Art and Talent: A Correspondence with Ben Hackworth Matthew Clayfield August 2007 Feature Articles The co-writer and director of the recent Australian independent feature Corroboree discusses his film, and the broader issues of film culture and film funding that impact on lower-budget filmmaking.
All the World’s a Stage: John Cassavetes’ Opening Night Matthew Clayfield May 2007 CTEQ Annotations on Film Opening Night (1977 USA 144 mins) Prod Co: Faces Prod, Phot: Al Ruban Dir, Scr: John Cassavetes Ed: Tom Cornwell Art Dir: Brian Ryman Mus: Bo Harwood Cast: Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, John Cassavetes,...
6 or 7 DVDs: Jean-Luc Godard in Region 4 Matthew Clayfield February 2007 DVD Reviews Six years ago, in the pages of this journal, former director of the Melbourne International Film Festival Geoff Gardner described the DVD distribution of Jean-Luc Godard’s films as both “spotty and, really, rat...
The Bleeding Eyes of a Festival Regular: The 14th Brisbane International Film Festival Matthew Clayfield October 2005 Festival Reports July 27–August 8, 2005 An Introductory Note on Methodology “I'm going to see so much that my eyes are going to bleed!” I told my friend Mark excitedly. It was early July and we were sitting in my room a...
Digital Histoire(s): The Cyber-cinema of Evan Mather Matthew Clayfield April 2005 Feature Articles An appreciation and analysis of the low/no budget methodology of cyber-cinema artist Evan Mather.
Killing the Gatekeeper: Autonomy, Globality and Reclaiming Australian Cinema Matthew Clayfield October 2004 Australian Film Culture Recent Australian films still struggle to define a viable “national identity” – but is this even necessary?