The Dark Age of Australian Cinema

(Note: An edited version of this post was previously submitted for my AFTRS Screen Culture course, Industry Appreciation article, January 2010)

It may seem ironic to title a reflection on a man I claim to be significant to the Australian industry with such a negative statement, but that has always been what is so unique about Antony I. Ginnane. From a Business background with an aim seemingly purely to make money, he is now the man whose job it is to lead our industry out of a Dark Age, and I believe he may be the man to do so. (I was inspired to publish this article I wrote after recently writing on the state of Korean Film in Australia over on the KOFFIA Blog).

The Dark Age was a period of perceived cultural decline or social collapse. To claim that the Australian industry is in such an era is not a bold statement in my mind, but a clear fact. While in a year  (this article was first created in 2010) that has been termed a ‘great year for Australian film’ the box office does not reflect this. Yes “Mao’s Last Dancer”, “Samson & Delilah” and “Charlie and Boots” may be the exceptions, but this is still an industry that does not provide a clear career path for young filmmakers. Plain and simple, it is not a sane decision to enter an industry that cannot sustain itself.

Meshing 4907

In 1943 the husband and wife team of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid decided to put their creative minds together to produce a film. The result of this is the influential short "Meshes of the Afternoon", which has a structure that in today's Screen Culture we would label as 'Experimental'. Well this blog post is an experimental piece in its own right, as I will mesh together a film made by a couple in 1943 with a film made by a couple in 2010. That is, the film "4907" made by Raelene Loong and myself.

Now I had never seen "Meshes of the Afternoon" until last week when it was screened as part of the Story module of my Screen Culture course. And yet, a film made 57 years ago, has a sharp resemblance to this short film that I wrote and co-directed this year. Now maybe i'm just unoriginal, which is quite possibly the case, or maybe it is an indication that 'experimental' is really not that experimental after all.

Like A Blirgin

Well, well, well, what do we have here? Kieran Tully blogging? I know I never thought I'd see it either but desperate times calls for desperate measures. And by desperate times I mean I am required to blog as part of my Screen Culture course that I am undertaking at AFTRS.

So welcome to this little corner of the interweb called Tully's Recall, in which I will discuss all things film, football and a little bit of Fan Chan. I will try and make it as informative and interesting as possible, but I make no promises.

Why haven't I blogged before? Well I tend to consider myself much more of a 'Film Recommender' (that's a word) rather than a 'Film Critic'. That is, I enjoy recommending films to my friends and family or just handing them a DVD and saying 'Watch it'. But I don't really follow this up with a big discussion about the film and I don't feel the need to express my views on it. If they like it, which I hope they do, then that's great.

This may seem to contrast my activity on Flixster, where I have 18,643 ratings (don't be alarmed, 13,255 of those are "Not Interested"). So I am active on the review scene but it's not my focus. And those Flixster reviews are more so just a reminder to myself as to what I thought about a particular film, and often even take the form of a single comment. For example, my review of 2006's Ultraviolet: "Ultrashit" or my review of 1977's Rolling Thunder: "Rolling Awesome".

Hence I don't really plan for this to be a movie review blog as such, but just a recap on my activities and no doubt highly credible theories about today's Screen Culture. So look out for my posts in the near future, and I hope you enjoy them here at Tully's Recall.

Kieran Tully

"I'm not familiar with that address. Would you please repeat the destination? "

www.kierantully.blogspot.com