Film
2018 Film Survey
To complement our May 2018 Film and TV issue, Australian Book Review wants to know: What is your favourite film of all time? And who is your favourite actor (any gender) and direc More
Desley Deacon reviews 'The Best Film I Never Made: And other stories about a life in the arts' by Bruce Beresford
Reading Bruce Beresford is enough to make any aspiring filmmaker think twice about following in his footsteps. ‘The Best Film I Never Made’, the title article of this collection of Ber More
#18 Dilan Gunawardana in conversation with Greg Sestero
David McInnis reviews 'Shakespeare’s cinema of love: A study in genre and influence' by R.S. White
Does William Shakespeare still matter? The question was posed frequently throughout 2016, the quatercentenary of his death. Those sceptical of Shakespeare’s enduring relevance faced the challenge of explaining the seemingly endless proliferation of films and adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays in an age ostensibly dislocated from early modern sensibilities and po ... More
Jake Wilson reviews 'Steven Spielberg: A life in films' by Molly Haskell
Steven Spielberg may be the most beloved filmmaker alive, but this has rarely stopped critics from patronising him. ‘Such moods as alienation and melancholia have no place in his films,â More
Michael Shmith reviews 'The Day the Music Died: A life lived behind the lens' by Tony Garnett
Tony Garnett, one of the most respected figures in British television drama, is also one of its most reclusive. Most people these days have almost certainly never heard of him, or, if they have, probably think he is a distant relation of Alf Garnett, of Till Death Us Do Part fame.
Even though the cantankerous Alf was a fictional character (played by ... More
Sarah McDonald reviews 'Latin American Cinema: A Comparative History' by Paul A. Schroeder RodrÃguez
Latin America – the term – is an invention of a would-be emperor of Mexico, French in origin, trying in vain to strengthen the imperial project through a link to a Latinate origin, including and privileging the language and culture of the romance languages and excluding the Anglophone in the quest for colonial pre-eminence. However, long before the empire of Nap ... More
Dion Kagan reviews 'Transgressions in Anglo-American Cinema: Gender, sex and the deviant body' edited by Joel Gwynne
As long as there have been moving images, people have fretted about cinema’s special dexterity at breaching sexual and social norms. We now have sophisticated tools to help us ...
MorePhilippa Hawker reviews 'Movie Journal: The rise of new American cinema 1959–1971' by Jonas Mekas
'Do you really want me to fall that low, to become a film critic, one of those people who write reviews?' asks Jonas Mekas, responding with typical brio to complaints ...
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