Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Brian McFarlane

Brian McFarlane

Brian McFarlane’s latest book is Four from the Forties: Arliss, Crabtree, Knowles and Huntington, Manchester: MUP, 2018. He has had three overlapping careers, as teacher, academic, and writer. He is the author or editor of over twenty books and hundreds of articles and reviews on film and literature and related matters. He co-edited The Oxford Companion to Australian Film and was compiler, editor and chief author of The Encyclopedia of British Film. His most recent books include: Twenty British Films: A guided tour, Double-Act: The remarkable lives and careers of Googie Withers and John McCallum, and The Never-Ending Brief Encounter. He is currently serving as Adjunct Professor at Swinburne University of Technology and as Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University.

Brian McFarlane reviews 'Damien Parer’s War' by Neil McDonald

May 2004, no. 261 01 May 2004
Writing of cinematographer Damien Parer’s untimely death in 1944, war correspondent Chester Wilmot paid tribute to him as ‘a fine man as well as a brilliant photographer. He made the camera speak as no other man I’ve ever known.’ Neil McDonald’s book, Damien Parer’s War, does eloquent justice to this legendary figure in Australian history and Australian film. Many may know that Parer w ... (read more)

‘Six Degrees of Aspiration: Recent Australian Films’ by Brian McFarlane

November 2006, no. 286 01 November 2006
It is one thing for Macbeth (of whom more in a moment) to chide himself for ‘vaulting ambition’; it is not, though, the first stick we would choose to beat Australian cinema with. Now, with 2006 nearly over and everybody saying what a good year it has been for local films, I want to identify ‘ambition’ as a key element in the making of this ‘good year’. ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'God of Speed' by Luke Davies

April 2008, no. 300 01 April 2008
The title is presumably meant to be ambiguous. Not only did the protagonist, Howard Hughes, hurtle round the world in aeroplanes of his own devising, and not only did he ingest amphetamines at a rate that would finish most of us, but there is also a sense of his crashing non-stop through life itself. And 'speed', he tells us in Luke Davies' remarkable new novel, ‘shouldered some of the weight fo ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews ‘The Naked Truth: A life in parts’ by Graeme Blundell

October 2008, no. 305 01 October 2008
There has been no escaping Graeme Blundell lately. There was Catharine Lumby’s astute reappraisal of his image-making Alvin Purple for the Currency Australian Classics series; and, as I write, the advertisements for the new local documentary Not Quite Hollywood feature a bare-chested Blundell in a pair of unforgivable 1970s flares. Now, here is his own account of how he got to be that way – an ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'Bud: A life' by Charles 'Bud' Tingwell (with Peter Wilmoth)

August 2004, no. 263 01 August 2004
After a few years ago, I had occasion to interview Bud Tingwell, and I remember telling an actress friend afterwards: ‘He talked for two hours without saying anything unkind about anyone.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘he’s famous for it.’ This testimony came back to me while reading this autobiography: clearly not everyone he has had dealings with in his busy life has been sweetness and light, b ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'God of Speed' by Luke Davies

April 2008, no. 300 01 April 2008
The title is presumably meant to be ambiguous. Not only did the protagonist, Howard Hughes, hurtle round the world in aeroplanes of his own devising, and not only did he ingest amphetamines at a rate that would finish most of us, but there is also a sense of his crashing non-stop through life itself. And 'speed', he tells us in Luke Davies' remarkable new novel, 'shouldered some of the weight for ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'Mister Pip' by Lloyd Jones

December 2006–January 2007, no. 287 01 December 2006
‘As far as books are concerned, I find life no help at all. Books grow out of other books.’ So said the great Ivy Compton-Burnett, and her comment is at least partly pertinent in relation to Lloyd Jones’s luminous Mister Pip, trailing as it does clouds of Dickensian glory. Increasingly, there seems to be a sub-genre of novels that have their roots in other novels. Some of these are vile, lik ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' by Philip Brophy and 'The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith' by Henry Reynolds

July–August 2008, no. 303 01 July 2008
Possibly inspired by the British Film Institute’s ‘Classics’ texts, the ‘Australian Screen Classics’ series is not only downright valuable but also looks good. The latest two, in their smart black covers, each adorned with a striking still from the relevant film, confirms the importance of having such detailed attention paid to key films in our history. It was enterprising of the series ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews 'I Peed on Fellini: Recollections of a life in film' by David Stratton

March 2008, no. 299 01 March 2008
The tasteful title of this autobiography echoes the story once told of how the ebullient Italian producer Filippo Del Guidice performed the same disservice to J. Arthur Rank and survived to become a force in the British film industry. David Stratton, after looking sideways in a Venetian toilet, never looked back – despite Fellini’s understandable choler. ... (read more)

Brian McFarlane reviews ‘Leo ‘Rumpole’ McKern: The accidental actor’ by George Whaley

April 2009, no. 310 01 April 2009
To become associated, even identified, with a role or a certain kind of role may ward off the financial uncertainties of an actor’s career, but it undoubtedly also brings its limitations. Remember how ineffably lady-like Greer Garson appeared in her MGM heyday: I recall watching her narrow her eyes in Mrs Miniver and thinking that she could play Lady Macbeth if someone gave her the chance. No on ... (read more)