Collins Felicity, Landman Jane. A Companion to Australian Cinema

Wiley-Blackwell, 2019. — 608 p. — (Wiley-Blackwell Companions).A Companion to Australian Cinema is an anthology of original essays by new and established authors on the contemporary state and future directions of a well-established national cinema. A timely intervention that challenges and expands the idea of cinema, this book brings into sharp focus those facets of Australian cinema that have endured, evolved and emerged in the twenty-first century. The essays address six thematically-organized propositions – that Australian cinema is an Indigenous screen culture, an international cinema, a minor transnational imaginary, an enduring auteur-genre-landscape tradition, a televisual industry and a multiplatform ecology. Offering fresh critical perspectives and extending previous scholarship, case studies range from The Lego Movie, Mad Max, and Australian stars in Hollywood, to transnational co-productions, YouTube channels, transmedia and nature-cam documentaries. New research on trends – such as the convergence of television and film, digital transformations of screen production and the shifting roles of women on and off-screen – highlight how established precedents have been influenced by new realities beyond both cinema and the national.
- Written in an accessible style that does not require knowledge of cinema studies or Australian studies.
- Presents original research on Australian actors, such as Cate Blanchett and Chris Hemsworth, their training, branding, and path from Australia to Hollywood.
- Explores the films and filmmakers of the Blak Wave and their challenge to Australian settler-colonial history and white identity.
- Expands the critical definition of cinema to include YouTube channels, transmedia documentaries, multiplatform changes capes and cinematic remix.
- Introduces readers to founding texts in Australian screen studies.