Welcome to Issue 29 of our journal! the editors December 2003 Editorial In recent weeks, members of the Australian film and television industry have been up in arms at the possibility of Australia's cultural industry being undermined by current free trade agreements with the US...
Goodbye City, Goodbye Cinema: Nostalgia in Tsai Ming-liang’s The Skywalk is Gone Brian Hu December 2003 Feature Articles Serial alienation in the modern city: a discussion of the multiple "lost objects" of mourning in Tsai Ming-liang's recent short film, ranging from bygone eras of Chinese and Taiwanese cinema to Tsai's own previous features.
Jennifer Dworkin Interviewed Jared Rapfogel December 2003 Feature Articles In this conversational yet rigorous interview, Dworkin discusses the techniques and overall experience of working on Love and Diane, a landmark in contemporary documentary that, in the tradition of Wiseman, reveals the workings of social structures from the point of view of human experience.
On the Street where You Live: The Films of John Smith Adrian Danks December 2003 Feature Articles An overview of the work of filmmaker John Smith, and an appreciation of its humble, earthly qualities, its fine-tuned probing of the "local" world, the artist's relationship to this world and the film form itself.
Monkey Screwball: MGM’s Afrikareise and Other Observations Maximilian Le Cain December 2003 Feature Articles A personal reflection on how one relates to and remembers cinema, Le Cain re-discovers the early MGM Tarzan movies, finding therein a complex interplay of social values and an innocence not found in contemporary cinema.
Recuperation and Rear Window Murray Pomerance December 2003 Feature Articles James Stewart in Rear Window is convalescent, not mentally disturbed, argues Pomerance – whose own experience of immobilising injury gave him a chance to see this Hitchcock classic from a new angle.
Tony’s Options: The Sopranos and the Televisuality of the Gangster Genre Martha P. Nochimson December 2003 Feature Articles Arguing against the proposition that television should be more like film, Nochimson shows how TV's The Sopranos transforms gangster film conventions through serial narrative patterning unique to the medium.
Dreams of Fassbinder: An Interview with Juliane Lorenz Maximilian Le Cain and Chris Neill December 2003 Feature Articles A distinguished film editor, Juliane Lorenz was closely associated with Rainer Werner Fassbinder in the final years of his life. She shares some memories of working with this "extraordinary" genius.
Hurlevent: Jacques Rivette’s Adaptation of Wuthering Heights Valérie Hazette December 2003 Feature Articles One of the least-discussed films by this often-elusive master, Hurlevent has recently been released on DVD. In this rare English-language interview, Rivette talks about the challenges he faced in planning and shooting his own version of Emily Bronte's novel – with some sidelights on his most recent project.
More Sinned Against than Sinning: The Fabrications of “Pre-Code Cinema” Richard Maltby December 2003 Feature Articles Revisionist history in action, this essay calls into question prevailing perceptions of pre-Code and Code Hollywood cinema, arguing for a more accurate and considered understanding of how the entertainment industry worked in the '30s and how it was influenced by a variety of factors.
Hong Kong Horror – The ’90s and Beyond Grady Hendrix December 2003 Feature Articles Back from the dead? Despite prophecies of doom, the Hong Kong film industry is now stronger than ever, with horror films a speciality. Hendrix provides all the gory details in this blow-by-blow account.
Rescuing the Image: The 5th Ibero-American Film Festival, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia David M. J. Wood December 2003 Festival Reports If making a Latin American feature film is difficult these days, merely screening one in Bolivia requires a small miracle. With much of the region...
The Curator and the Critic at Vancouver 2003 – A Report Bérénice Reynaud December 2003 Festival Reports Lasting a solid two-week stretch (September 25 – October 10), the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) has come to play an increasingly co...
My Own Private Toronto: The 2003 Toronto Film Festival Dan Sallitt December 2003 Festival Reports The gap between the public face of the Toronto Film Festival and the experience of festival-goers continues to widen. Improbably enough, mild-mann...
New York Film Festival 2003 – A Report Jared Rapfogel December 2003 Festival Reports Please note: discussions of individual films reveal plot details. Year after year I find myself frustrated by the New York Film Festival's extr...
Report on the 22nd Pordenone Silent Film Festival Jay Weissberg December 2003 Festival Reports What astonishes at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Le Giornate del Cinema Muto), which takes place annually in northern Italy, is not just the...
Leeds International Film Festival, 2003 Benjamin Halligan December 2003 Festival Reports The 11 days of the 17th Leeds International Film Festival delivered a diverse and challenging programme. Leeds has always been adventurous and ico...
After the Storm – the 8th Pusan International Film Festival Jungyeob Ji December 2003 Festival Reports 2003 wasn't a particularly good year for Korea, or Pusan, the port city located at the southern most tip of South Korea. A strong-arm hurricane “M...
Siodmak, Robert Chris Justice December 2003 Great Directors b. August 8, 1900, Dresden, Saxony, Germany (or Memphis, Tennessee) d. March 10, 1973, Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland filmography bibliography ...
Ghatak, Ritwik Megan Carrigy December 2003 Great Directors b. 4 November, 1925, Jindabazar, Dhaka, East Bengal (now Bangladesh) d. 6 February, 1976, Calcutta, West Bengal, India filmography bibliograp...
Gilliam, Terry Rumsey Taylor December 2003 Great Directors b. Terence Vance Gilliam b. November 22, 1940, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA filmography bibliography web resources * * * Federico Fellini's...
Loach, Ken Mike Robins December 2003 Great Directors b. Kenneth Loach b. June 17, 1936, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, United Kingdom filmography bibliography articles in Senses web resources I have...
Penn, Arthur Adam Bingham December 2003 Great Directors b. September 27, 1922, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA d. September 28, 2010, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA filmography bibliogra...
Ahwesh, Peggy John David Rhodes December 2003 Great Directors b. Pittsburgh, Pensylvania, USA, 1954 filmography bibliography web resources All serious art presents a challenge to its interlocutors, re...
Argento, Dario Xavier Mendik December 2003 Great Directors b. September 7, 1940, Rome, Italy filmography bibliography web resources Born in Italy: The Argento Formula Dario Argento was born in Rome ...
Tashlin, Frank Ethan de Seife December 2003 Great Directors b. February 19, 1913, Weehawken, New Jersey, USA d. May 5, 1972, Hollywood, California, USA filmography bibliography web resources For al...
Chang Cheh Ethan de Seife December 2003 Great Directors also transliterated as Zhang Che, Zhang Zheh, Chang Zheh b. c.1922, Qingtian, Zhejiang Province, China d. 22 June, 2002, Hong Kong, China fil...
Kung Fu Cult Masters – From Bruce Lee To Crouching Tiger by Leon Hunt Peter Gravestock December 2003 Book Reviews (London: Wallflower Press, 2003) When film academics direct their attention to the martial arts film, the tone of their writing often becomes wistf...
The Matrix of Visual Culture – Working with Deleuze in Film Theory by Patricia Pisters Patricia MacCormack December 2003 Book Reviews (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003) The premise of this book positions it within a disturbing paradigm shift in current academic and philos...
A City of Sadness by Bérénice Reynaud Stephen Teo December 2003 Book Reviews (London: British Film Institute, 2002) Bérénice Reynaud's study of Hou Hsiao-hsien's A City of Sadness is a welcome addition to the BFI's “Modern C...
The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Modernity, Contingency, the Archive by Mary Ann Doane Meredith Morse December 2003 Book Reviews (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2002) The achievement of modernity's temporality, as exemplified by the development o...
Film Factories?: A Review of Genre and Contemporary Hollywood edited by Steve Neale Robert Briggs December 2003 Book Reviews What is a "genre", anyway? This review essay asks whether current film scholarship has gone too far in focusing on questions of political economy at the expense of aesthetics.
The Devil Strikes at Night Bernard Hemingway December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film The Devil Strikes At Night (Nachts Wenn der Teufel Kam, 1957 West Germany 105 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: Davina-Film Prod, Dir: Robert Sio...
Betty in Blunderland Paul Verhoeven December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film Betty in Blunderland (1934 USA 7 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: Fleischer Studios/Paramount Prod: Max Fleischer Dir: Dave Fleischer Animation:...
Huffing and Puffing about Three Little Pigs Adrian Danks December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film Three Little Pigs (1933 USA 9 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: Walt Disney Pictures Prod: Walt Disney Dir: Burt Gillett Anim: Art Babbitt, Norma...
The Stranger J.D. Lafrance December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film The Stranger (1946 USA 95 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod: Sam Spiegel (as S. P. Eagle) Dir: Orson Welles Scr: Anthony Veiller (John Huston and Ors...
Laughing Gas: The Dentist Darragh O’Donoghue December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film The Dentist (1932 USA 20 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: Republic Prod: Mack Sennett (uncredited) Dir: Leslie Pearce Scr: W.C. Fields (uncredit...
The Public Enemy Richard Maltby December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film The author will be presenting a lecture on pre-Code Hollywood at ACMI on December 10, 6pm prior to the screening of The Public Enemy. For further ...
King Kong John McGowan-Hartmann December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film King Kong (1933 USA 100 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: RKO Radio Pictures Prod, Dir: Ernest B. Schoedsack, Merian C. Cooper Scr: James Creelma...
Hold Your Man David Boxwell December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film Hold Your Man (1933 USA 87 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Prod: Sam Wood Dir: Sam Wood Scr: Anita Loos (and story) and How...
Grit ‘n’ Glitz: Gold Diggers of 1933 Peter H. Kemp December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933 USA 97 mins) Source: Chapel Films Prod Co: Warner Bros. Prod: Robert Lord Dir: Mervyn LeRoy, Busby Berkeley (all mus...
Five Star Final Brian Darr December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film Five Star Final (1931 USA 86 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: First National/Vitaphone (Warner Bros.) Prod: Hal B. Wallis Dir: Mervyn LeRoy Scr...
Ex-Lady Kendahl Cruver December 2003 CTEQ Annotations on Film Ex-Lady (1933 USA 67 mins) Source: Library of Congress Prod Co: Warner Bros-The Vitaphone Corporation Prod: Darryl F. Zanuck Dir: Robert Florey...
Five to Ten: Five Reflections on Abbas Kiarostami’s 10 Rolando Caputo December 2003 The Wind Will Carry Him: Abbas Kiarostami Remembered Utilising a prism-like structure, Caputo arrives at a range of observations and conclusions about Kiarostami's latest feature, Ten, his cinematic style in general and digital cinema today.
Cacti Blossom in a Desert: Some Short Films of Abbas Kiarostami Jim Knox December 2003 Abbas Kiarostami Kiarostami's government-sponsored educational shorts have gained attention thanks to his later, acclaimed features; pointing to their example, Knox argues that some of the most rewarding cinema lies far outside the world of officially recognised "art".
Days in the Country: Representations of Rural Space and Place in Abbas Kiarostami’s Life and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees and The Wind Will Carry Us Stephen Bransford December 2003 Abbas Kiarostami As several critics have noted, the films of Abbas Kiarostami are characterised by a complex interplay between documentary and fiction. This in-depth essay seeks a fuller understanding of this interplay through an analysis of how space and place are articulated in three of his films.
Japanese Story: A Shift of Heart Felicity Collins December 2003 Australian Contemporary Cinema This recent, multi-award winning Australian film marks a quantum leap for the Oz landscape genre film and hints at a shift in national consciousness.
Unpopular Populism, or The Decline and Fall of the Little Aussie Battler: Notes on Australian Film Comedy in 2003 Jake Wilson December 2003 Australian Contemporary Cinema This short essay argues that most recent Australian comedy films have been all too "ordinary" – but nominates one or two new directors as talents to watch.
