Editorial

Towards an Ecology of Cinema

The Day of the Claw: A Synoptic Account of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds by Ken Mogg

In this brilliantly imaginative piece, Ken Mogg takes several literary texts and uses them to synoptically illuminate Hitchcock’s intentions behind The Birds. Don’t for a second believe that Daphne du Maurier’s short story is the only literary influence.

André Bazin’s Ontological Other: The Animal in Adventure Films by Seung-hoon Jeong

Cinema has long portrayed the lives of animals and their relationships with human beings. Seung-hoon Jeong examines André Bazin’s writings on such films as Crin blanc: le cheval sauvage and Umberto D to rethink the ontological and æsthetical concepts that define his cinematic vision.

Confining Nature: Rites of Passage, Eco-Indigenes and the Uses of Meat in Walkabout by Gregory Stephens

Gregory Stephens explores how the rites of passage chronicled in Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout contribute towards the film’s critique of the post-industrial world’s attitudes towards nature.

General Features

Luc Moullet, a Bootleg Filmmaker at the Centre Georges Pompidou by Sally Shafto

Luc Moullet is what the French call “un original”, an offbeat, quirky talent, who over a nearly fifty-year period has forged a unique filmography. Sally Shafto goes in search of what makes Moullet such an individualist.

A Buñuel Scrapbook: The Last Script: Remembering Luis Buñuel and Calanda: 40 Years Later by Linda C. Ehrlich

Designed as a loosely chronological “scrapbook” marking the 25^th anniversary of Luis Buñuel’s death in Mexico City, El Último guión: Buñuel en la memoria is a chat between Juan Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière about the great director’s life and work. Linda C. Ehrlich finds it a fascinating and accurate portrait of a man of vision.

The Trauma Film and British Romantic Cinema 1940-1960 by John Orr

Trauma has long played a key role in cinema. John Orr argues that “What is out there as waking nightmare in a dangerous world is often a mirror of what is hidden in here, in the human heart.” In Orr’s provocative analysis, the spectre of key British filmmaker Michael Powell inevitably emerges.

My Son John and The Red Scare in Hollywood by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

Leo McCarey may be revered for his string of film masterpieces (Duck Soup, The Awful Truth, Love Affair, Going My Way, et al), but he is equally reviled for his anti-Communist propaganda, My Son John. Gwendolyn Audrey Foster explores how the film shines a light on the cultural politics of the time.

Love and Social Marginality in Samson and Delilah by Therese Davis

Warwick Thornton’s Samson and Delilah has captured the world’s imagination in a way no Aboriginal film has done before. After a century of white filmmakers controlling (often by default) the cinematic presentation of Aboriginal culture, Therese Davis wonders whether Samson and Delilah marks the start of a new era.

Wake in Fright: An Interview with Ted Kotcheff by Raffaele Caputo

Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright may have run for more than a year in one Parisian cinema, but its blunt examination of lonely men in a harsh and alien landscape left many Australians of the time feeling perplexed. On the occasion of its sparkling re-release, Raffaele Caputo talks with Kotcheff, who eruditely and humorously throws new light on this Antipodean classic.

“Cameron Fry, this one’s for you.” Or: Why the Sausage King of Chicago Doesn’t Turn Up for Lunch at Chez Quis by Scott Murray

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off may be widely acclaimed as one of the greatest teen movies ever made, but at its heart lies a key (and previously unexamined) conundrum: Why doesn’t Abe Froman arrive for lunch at Chez Quis?

To Catch the Sun in a Net: Slovak Cinema in the 1960s by Peter Hourigan

A ten-feature box-set from the Slovak Film Institute has Peter Hourigan delightedly continuing his exploration of the cultural heritage of a national cinema that has been widely overlooked since the division of Czechoslovakia.

Spotlight on Viviane Vagh

In a field dominated by intellectual showmanship and hermetic eccentricity, Viviane Vagh’s filmmaking speaks with a voice as familiar as it is poetic … and melancholic. In this special Spotlight, five writers celebrate Vagh’s pioneering films and media installations.

Magical Transformations: A Conversation with Viviane Vagh by Justine Gaunt

Notes on Free Women/Femmes libres by Grant Wiedenfeld

Viviane Vagh and the Poetics of Disappearance, Or: A Portrait of Cinema as a Young Girl by Gabriela Trujillo

Moving through the Absence: Viviane Vagh’s Ground Zero NY, 2005 by Diana Gonzalez

Experimental Fusions: Viviane Vagh’s Beachcombers Installations by Romy Sutherland

MIFF Premiere Fund/Post-Punk Dossier

edited by Adrian Danks, Fincina Hopgood and Scott Murray

To coincide with the 58^th Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), Senses of Cinema has commissioned a range of articles on some of the Australian films being screened at the festival. It is highlighted by articles on two films from the MIFF Premiere Fund that portray significant and somewhat contrastive episodes in the history of Australia’s relationship with Indonesia: the opening night film, Balibo (directed by Robert Connolly), set in East Timor during Indonesia’s 1975 invasion, and John Hughes’ documentary on the making of Joris Ivens’ Indonesia Calling (1946). MIFF 2009 also features a curated retrospective program of Australian post-punk films. The following articles provide valuable insights, revealing reinterpretations and amusing behind-the-scenes anecdotes to help appreciate the significant and ongoing impact of this subculture on the local film industry.

Free at Last: Robert Connolly’s Balibo by Adrian Danks

Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens in Australia by John Hughes

Post-Punk and Vision by Jon Dale

Notes for a Critique of Going Down by John Flaus

Dogs in Space by David Nichols

Interview with Richard Lowenstein by Rolando Caputo and Peter Tapp

Go-Go Gorilla: Another Time, Another Place: Making My Film at Swinburne by Hugh Marchant

DVD Reviews

Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 review by Wheeler Winston Dixon

Michael Powell Down Under: Norman Lindsay’s Age of Consent review by Scott Murray

Festival Reports

Inside and Out: The 8^th AniFest: International Festival of Animated Films by Cerise Howard

“The three of us traveled the whole path together. Now that is Utopia.”: The 7^th Berlinale Talent Campus by Kate Matthews

Silver Linings: The Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film by Olaf Möller

“Dropping films and burning palaces”: The Diagonale Festival of Austrian Film by Claudia Siefen

Legacies of the Past: The 23^rd Image Forum Festival by Brian Coffey

Transnational Mission, International Dynamics: A Report on the International Film Festival Workshop by Saër Maty Bâ

East, West and More in the 28^th International Istanbul Film Festival by N. Buket Cengiz

The Misery Tour: Can Bad News be Turned into Good Deeds? The 14^th It’s All True International Documentary Festival by Shari Kizirian

A Girl’s Own Adventure, or Something – but Not the Same Thing – for Everyone: The 19^th Melbourne Queer Film Festival by Cerise Howard

The Truth and the Pleasure: The 55^th Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen by Claudia Siefen

Book Reviews

Generalising from the Particular: Masculine Singular: French New Wave Cinema by Geneviève Sellier and Making Waves: New Cinemas of the 1960s by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith feature review by Tony McKibbin

“In Between” the Moving Image: Mutant Media: Essays on Cinema, Video Art and New Media by John Conomos review by Sean Lowry

Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia by Marijke de Valck review by Gaik Cheng Khoo

Sam Peckinpah: Interviews edited by Kevin J. Hayes review by Gabrielle Murray

Moving Forward, Looking Back: The European Avant-garde and the Invention of Film Culture, 1919-1939 by Malte Hagener review by Paul Fileri

Scorsese by Ebert by Roger Ebert review by Matthew Sorrento

Cinesexuality by Patricia MacCormack review by Maria Walsh

The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity by Linnie Blake review by Robyn Citizen

Great Directors

Aki Kaurismäki by Lana Wilson

Ken Russell by John A. Riley

Cinémathèque Annotations on Film