| Reference Type |
chapter
|
| Title |
The New Australian Cinema |
| Chapter/Web article title |
Personal relationships and sexuality |
| Author(s) | Meaghan Morris |
| Town |
West Melbourne |
| State |
VIC |
| Country |
Australia |
| Publication Date |
00-00-1980 |
| Citation Date |
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| Page Number |
138-153 |
| Comments |
This chapter provides a great overview of representations of sexuality in Australian film in the 1970's and 1980's, and its relation to the Australian psyche or what may be referred to as 'social consciousness'or 'cultural identity'.
There are some great distinctions made between films which depict sexuality in relation to the 'tribe' or mass, and those which allow their screen sexuality to have direct bearing on the construction of subjectivity. This is just one of the many frames of analysis offered by Morris. Her discussion regarding the function of the 'stereotype' in Australian film is also particularly useful and sheds light on a convention which commonly eludes definition.
Morris' analysis, (although applied to screen sexuality in the 1970's and 1980's), can be applied to film in the 1990's with interesting results. Her analysis provides a context for convention often disregarded or taken for granted as being inherently "Australian".
Morris refers to Walkabout as a 'study in polarization'(145). She finds the setting of the film significant in highlighting the interaction (or dislocation) with the land which divides the two cultures represented by the characters, forced together. Morris is interested in the 'primitive versus civilised' / 'desert versus garden' binaries, and particularly in the interpersonal/sexual cultural traditions separating Gulpilil's character from Agutter's in Walkabout. She claims these themes are often carried out in the 'surreal meeting place'(145) of the desert in Australian films.
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| Synopsis |
This chapter deals with representations of gender, inter-personal relationships and sexuality in Australian film. It is part of a collection of articles which seek to analyse specific trends emergent in analysis of the Australian cinema until 1980.
This chapter contains stills from the films Morris uses in support of her claims, such as; Peterson, Don's Party, Caddie, The Naked Bunyip, Felicity, Alvin Purple and Journey Among Women to name a few. |
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Notes ( click to view )
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| The F.J. Holden in this Personal Relationships and Sexuality chapter of The New Australian Cinema |
Morris states that behind the relationships in The F.J. Holden; "...the overriding theme is the mechanism of conformity to group norms which dictates down to the last detail the acceptable forms of taking freedoms"(142)
Morris continues, stating that "...they show people responding to the social constraints of their lives, rather than simply acting out and demonstrating them for the audience. These films go behind group rituals, and show the strain they place on individuals bound by them, as well as the curious pleasures they provide"(148)
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