Public history, private memories: Historical imagination in the new Italian cinema 1988-1999

The concern with the following arguments started during a study of national and international cinemas, from the desire to account for a cinema that internationally was doing well, but was undervalued domestically. The aims were to account for the renewal of Italian filmmaking from 1988, the New Italian cinema, and understand the conditions behind this renewal. The thesis identifies in the historical theme and in the recurrence of features from Italian cinema history elements of coherence with previous cinema production. The first consideration that emerges is that a triangulation between a new generation of filmmakers, their audience and recent history shaped the recovery of Italian cinema from 1988. A second consideration is that no discussion of Italian cinema can be separated from a discussion of that which it represents: Italian society and politics. This representation has not only addressed questions of identity for a cohort of spectators, but on occasions has captured the attention of the international audience. Thus the thesis follows a methodologic approach that positions texts in relation to certain traditions in Italian filmmaking and to the context by taking into consideration also industrial factors and social and historical changes. By drawing upon a range of disciplines, from political history to socio-psychological studies, the thesis has focussed on representation of history and memory in two periods of Italian film history: the first and the last decade of twentieth century. The concern has been not so much to interpret the films, but to understand the processes that made the films and how spectarors have applied their knowledge structures to make meaning of the films. Thus the thesis abstains from ascribing implicit meanings to films, but acknowledges how films project cultural contingencies. This is beacause film is shaped by production conditions and cultural and historical circumstances that make the film intelligible. As Bordwell stated in Making Meaning, "One can do other things with films besides 'reading' them" (1989, p. xiii). Within this framework, the thesis proposes a project that understands history films with the norms that govern Italian filmic output, those norms that regulate conditions of production and consumption and the relation between films from various traditions.

Writing the Barbaric Recent Past : Holocaust Fiction for Young Adults

Horror and redemption in Holocaust writing for young adults: Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief, John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. While it has long been thought that the Holocaust is not an appropriate subject matter for young audiences, from The Diary of Anne Frank onwards it has always been part of their reading matter. Never, however, has there been so much interest as in the recent best-selling publications by Zusak and Boyne (the latter of which has been made into a film). This chapter examines the politics of crafting stories for young people about the unspeakable events of the recent past, about who has the right to ‘speak for’ the victims, and whether some genres (for example, fairy stories or fabulism) work best, given the horrific nature of the subject matter.

At breaking point? Challenges for Australian film policy through the lens of genre (horror) films

Cultural policy settings attempting to foster the growth and development of the Australian feature film industry in era of globalisation are coming under increasing pressure. Global forces and emerging production and distribution models are challenging the “narrowness” of cultural policy – mandating a particular film culture, circumscribing certain notions of value and limiting the variety of films produced through cultural policy driven subvention models. Australian horror film production is an important case study. Horror films are a production strategy well suited to the financial limitations of the Australian film industry with competitive advantages for producers against international competitors. However, emerging within a “national” cinema driven by public subsidy and social/cultural objectives, horror films – internationally oriented with a low-culture status – have been severely marginalised within public funding environments. This paper introduces Australian horror film production, and examines the limitations of cultural policy, and the impacts of these questions for the Producer Offset.

'We just make the pictures...?' How work is portrayed in children's feature length films

This article explores how adult paid work is portrayed in 'family' feature length films. The study extends previous critical media literature which has overwhelmingly focused on depictions of gender and violence, exploring the visual content of films that is relevant to adult employment. Forty-two G/PG films were analyzed for relevant themes. Consistent with the exploratory nature of the research, themes emerged inductively from the films' content. Results reveal six major themes: males are more visible in adult work roles than women; the division of labour remains gendered; work and home are not mutually exclusive domains; organizational authority and power is wielded in punitive ways; there are avenues to better employment prospects; and status/money is paramount. The findings of the study reflect a range of subject matters related to occupational characteristics and work-related communication and interactions which are typically viewed by children in contemporary society.

Whither culture? Australian horror films and the limitations of cultural policy

Cultural policy that attempts to foster the Australian film industry’s growth and development in an era of globalisation is coming under increasing pressure. Throughout the 2000s, there has been a substantial boom in Australian horror films led by ‘runaway’ horror film Saw (2004), Wolf Creek (2005), and Undead (2003), achieving varying levels of popularity and commercial success worldwide. However, emerging within a national cinema driven by public subsidy and valuing ‘quality’ and ‘cultural content’ over ‘entertainment’ and ‘commercialism’, horror films have generally been antithetical to these objectives. Consequently, the recent boom in horror films has occurred largely outside the purview and subvention of cultural policy. This paper argues that global forces and emerging production and distribution models are challenging the ‘narrowness’ of cultural policy – a narrowness that mandates a particular film culture, circumscribes certain notions of value and limits the variety of films produced domestically. Despite their low-culture status, horror films have been well suited to the Australian film industry’s financial limitations, they are a growth strategy for producers, and a training ground for emerging filmmakers.

Aural auteur : sound in the films of Rolf de Heer

An interpretative methodology for understanding meaning in cinema since the 1950s, auteur analysis is an approach to film studies in which an individual, usually the director, is studied as the author of her or his films. The principal argument of this thesis is that proponents of auteurism have privileged examination of the visual components in a film-maker’s body of work, neglecting the potentially significant role played by sound. The thesis seeks to address this problematic imbalance by interrogating the creative use of sound in the films written and directed by Rolf de Heer, asking the question, “Does his use of sound make Rolf de Heer an aural auteur?” In so far as the term ‘aural’ encompasses everything in the film that is heard by the audience, the analysis seeks to discover if de Heer has, as Peter Wollen suggests of the auteur and her or his directing of the visual components (1968, 1972 and 1998), unconsciously left a detectable aural signature on his films. The thesis delivers an innovative outcome by demonstrating that auteur analysis that goes beyond the mise-en-scène (i.e. visuals) is productive and worthwhile as an interpretive response to film. De Heer’s use of the aural point of view and binaural sound recording, his interest in providing a ‘voice’ for marginalised people, his self-penned song lyrics, his close and early collaboration with composer Graham Tardif and sound designer Jim Currie, his ‘hands-on’ approach to sound recording and sound editing and his predilection for making films about sound are all shown to be examples of de Heer’s aural auteurism. As well as the three published (or accepted for publication) interviews with de Heer, Tardif and Currie, the dissertation consists of seven papers refereed and published (or accepted for publication) in journals and international conference proceedings, a literature review and a unifying essay. The papers presented are close textual analyses of de Heer’s films which, when considered as a whole, support the thesis’ overall argument and serve as a comprehensive auteur analysis, the first such sustained study of his work, and the first with an emphasis on the aural.

Microstructural characterization of electron beam evaporated tungsten oxide films for gas sensing applications

Tungsten trioxide is one of the potential semiconducting materials used for sensing NH3, CO, CH4 and acetaldehyde gases. The current research aims at development, microstructural characterization and gas sensing properties of thin films of Tungsten trioxide (WO3). In this paper, we intend to present the microstructural characterization of these films as a function of post annealing heat treatment. Microstructural and elemental analysis of electron beam evaporated WO3 thin films and iron doped WO3 films (WO3:Fe) have been carried out using analytical techniques such as Transmission electron microscopy, Rutherford Backscattered Spectroscopy and XPS analysis. TEM analysis revealed that annealing at 300oC for 1 hour improves cyrstallinity of WO3 film. Both WO3 and WO3:Fe films had uniform thickness and the values corresponded to those measured during deposition. RBS results show a fairly high concentration of oxygen at the film surface as well as in the bulk for both films, which might be due to adsorption of oxygen from atmosphere or lattice oxygen vacancy inherent in WO3 structure. XPS results indicate that tungsten exists in 4d electronic state on the surface but at a depth of 10 nm, both 4d and 4f electronic states were observed. Atomic force microscopy reveals nanosize particles and porous structure of the film. This study shows e-beam evaporation technique produces nanoaparticles and porous WO3 films suitable for gas sensing applications and doping with iron decreases the porosity and particle size which can help improve the gas selectivity.

Electron beam evaporation of tungsten oxide films for gas sensors

Pure and Iron incorporated nanostructured Tungsten Oxide (WO3) thin films were investigated for gas sensing applications using noise spectroscopy. The WO3 sensor was able to detect lower concentrations (1 ppm-10 ppm) of NH3, CO, CH4 and Acetaldehyde gases at higher operating temperatures between 100oC to 250oC. The response of the WO3 sensor to NH3, CH4 and Acetaldehyde at lower temperatures (50oC-100oC) was significant when the sensor was photo-activated using blue-light emitting diode (Blue-LED). The WO3 with Fe (WO3:Fe) was found to show some response to Acetaldehyde gas only at relatively higher operating temperature (250oC) and gas concentration of 10 ppm.