Welcome to Issue 6 of our monthly journal! the editors May 2000 Editorial Issue 6 In this issue we feature articles on two highly distinctive auteurs, Brian De Palma and François Truffaut. A career ranging from the late ’60s to the present day and a body of work so vast and varied, Brian De Palma is an intriguing case study. Like the other filmmakers of his generation, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, De Palma’s formal and thematic preoccupations are entwined with and influenced by a deep respect and admiration for classic American cinema, in particular, the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock. The ’90s saw an interesting turn in De Palma’s career: producing one of the greatest films of the ’90s and his most “intimate” film, Carlito’s Way. In this issue, we present a fascinating collection of short and genuinely insightful “impressionistic analyses” on specific moments and themes in this film. Also part of this section is an essay on a neglected De Palma film, Raising Cain, and an intriguing analysis of Mission: Impossible by French writer and theorist, Nicole Brenez. Truffaut, in many respects more than Godard, epitomised the spirit of the French Nouvelle Vague – John Conomos looks at how Truffaut’s own teenage cinephilic story was transposed into the character of Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows. At the other extreme, American writer Acquarello guides us through one of Truffaut’s last films (Truffaut died in his early 50s), the 1978 The Green Room, a film full of dark, torturous love and death. Also in this issue, as well as various critical articles on films such as Akerman’s South and Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, we present a series of papers given at an Alfred Hitchcock conference which took place last month. (For the Love of Fear, convened by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, held from 31 March to 2 April 2000. ) We are also pleased to present a selection of essays from the catalogue accompanying a major retrospective of French experimental film (Jeune, dure et pure ! Une histoire du cinéma d’avant-garde et expérimental en France, sous la direction de Nicole Brenez et Christian Lebrat, Paris-Milan, Cinémathèque française/Mazzotta, May 3 – July 2, 2000.) There is also our first report from an overseas film festival, the 19th Istanbul International Film Festival, which took place 15 – 30 April. And we continue with our publishing of the Annotations for films screening at the Melbourne Cinémathèque. At the start of each month, there will be annotations for most of the films playing during that month. These annotations have been published by the magazine Metro in the past few years.
