Screen Theory Goes to Australia

There are networks of circulation, rather than spaces in communication, and the space—local, national, inter-national—where one is acting at any given time is criss-crossed by all those networks, each of them constructing "spaces" differently. . . . So what matters now is not the origin of ideas—here, there, coming in, going out—but . . . the performance of the text on the spot, and how intellectuals work to define their "spot" in the world, and its relations to other "'spots.'"

Meaghan Morris

During its formative years (specifically, the period 1975-85), a crucial component in the consolidation of Australian film theory and criticism was the local and international exchange of critical formations facilitated by academic film studies (and associated) conferences and related organizations, including the Australian Screen Studies Association conferences and antecedents (1978-86), the biennial conference of the Film and History Association of Australia and New Zealand and its precursors (1981-present), and (later) the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia annual conferences (1991-present). The first of these, the Australian Screen Studies Association (ASSA), developed out of the Australian Journal of Screen Theory (AJST), a mid-1970s publication, initially edited by John Tulloch (and later by an editorial board consisting of Philip Bell, Colin Crisp, Stephen Crofts, Peter R. Gerdes, Neil McDonald, and others). The journal ended its short tenure in 1986, "the large gap in film and media studies within Australia created by [its] demise" filled substantially by Continuum: An Australian Journal of the Media (1987-present).¹ This article (and its larger project)² takes an interest in the sometimes idealistic, sometimes prescriptive nature of this "original" and formative moment in Australian film studies and reflects on its statements and achievements, on the theory and practice that shaped the moment, on its various intellectual and political engagements, and on the personal, professional, and institutional motivations that defined (and continue to define) Australian film studies. There is here, admittedly, a certain arbitrariness to the limits imposed on the inquiry, not only in selecting the decade-long period under investigation, but also in limiting the concept of "film studies," which overlaps substantially with literary, communications, and cultural studies, and its geographical demarcation ("Australia") that elides the connections and exchanges of ideas and personnel from other parts of the world, and also the way that film studies develops differently in various locations across Australia.³ There is also a recognition—as once described by John Frow and Meaghan Morris—that the intellectual life of film (and cultural) studies in Australia was shaped by a "socially mixed but intensively familial urban subculture and the small journal networks which sustained it."⁴ Accordingly, this article takes an interest in (1) the relationship between AJST and the local conferences and small journals network of the time; (2) the ongoing tension between theory and practice—theory and history—that is played out at these events and in the pages of AJST; and (3) the way in which local (and imported) intellectuals engaged (in these forums) with new bodies of ideas and how these interacted with—and were indigenized by—native intellectual traditions and institutional contexts.

In "A State of False Consciousness"—a broad overview of a range of film activities in Australia, published in Cinema Papers early in 1974—Barrett Hodsdon (then recently returned from some months studying film theory in New York and London on a grant from the National Film and Television School) argued for the need to discover links between film production and film education, to find connections between film theory and film history, and to forge a well-explicated theory of cinema:

Amongst industry interests and educators there is a reticence in acknowledging the importance of bridging the gap between film making and film study. Where film courses [in Australia] exist there is a tendency to polarize the approaches rather than discovering potential links between theory and practice. . . . Theory [for practitioners] is something academic and tenuous; it has nothing to say about the realities of production situations . . . because it is theory. . . . Not only should the relationship between narrative film, industry and ideology be pursued more rigorously but much more...