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Australian Genre Film interrogates key genres at the core of Australia's so-called new golden age of genre cinema, establishing the foundation on which more sustained research on film genre in Australian cinema can develop.
The book examines what characterises Australian cinema and its output in this new golden age, as contributors ask to what extent Australian genre film draws on widely understood (and largely Hollywood-based) conventions, as compared to culturally specific conventions of genre storytelling. As such, this book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Australian genre film, undertaken through original analyses of 13 significant Australian genres: action, biopics, comedy, crime, horror, musical, road movie, romance, science fiction, teen, thriller, war, and the Western.
This book will be a cornerstone work for the burgeoning field of Australian film genre studies and a must-read for academics; researchers; undergraduate students; postgraduate students; and general readers interested in film studies, media studies, cultural studies, Australian studies, and sociology.
List of contents
1. Australian Film Genre Studies
Mark David Ryan and Kelly McWilliam
2. The Action Genre and the 'International Turn' in Australian Cinema
Amanda Howell
3. 'Beethoven had his Critics, too...': The Australian Biopic in the Twenty-First Century
Adrian Danks
4. A Seamless Wedding: Comedy, Diversity, and the International
Lesley Speed
5. New Australian Crime Drama
Greg Dolgopolov
6. A Monstrous Landscape Filled with Killer Animals and Madmen: Tropes of Contemporary Australian Horror Movies
Mark David Ryan
7. The Musical in Australia: Moving Minorities into the Mainstream
Liz Giuffre
8. Traversing Genre: The Australian Road Movie
Deborah Thomas
9. Courting the Romance
Kelly McWilliam
10. Looking to the Future: Three Tendencies in Australian Science Fiction Cinema since 2008
Andrew James Couzens
11. 'Growing Up Was Never Easy': Coming of Age in the Teen Film
Kelly McWilliam
12. Sun-lit Noir: Australian Thrillers
Jonathan Rayner
13. A Wider Angle: Australia's War Films of the New Millenia
Daniel Reynaud
14. Questioning the Australian Western
Grayson Cooke
About the author
Kelly McWilliam is an Associate Professor in Communication and Media Studies at the University of Southern Queensland and the Immediate Past President of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia (CSAA).
Mark David Ryan is an Associate Professor in Screen and Media Studies and a Chief Investigator for the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), Queensland University of Technology. He was the President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAANZ) between 2015 and 2018.
Summary
Australian Genre Film interrogates key genres at the core of Australia’s so-called new golden age of genre cinema, establishing the foundation on which more sustained research on film genre in Australian cinema can develop.
