The cinema of Australia began with the 1906 production of The Story of the Kelly Gang, arguably the world's first feature film. Since then, Australian crews have produced many films, a number of which have received international recognition. Many actors and filmmakers with international reputations started their careers in Australian films, and many of these have established lucrative careers in larger film-producing centres such as the United States.
Cinema in Australia is subject to censorship, called classification. Films may be refused classification, which means they are effectively banned.
History
The Australian film critic David Stratton characterized the history of the country's film as one of "boom and bust": there have been deep troughs, during which few films were made for decades, and high peaks, during which a glut of films reached the market.[3][need quotation to verify]
Pioneer days – 1890s to 1910
The first public screenings of films in Australia took place in October 1896, within a year of the world's first screening in Paris by Lumière brothers. On 22 August 1896, the first films projected to a paying audience in Australia were at Harry Rickards' Melbourne Opera House (later known as the Tivoli Theatre). The film by magician Carl Hertz was screened as part of a variety show act. Australian tours with similar projection machines followed.[4]
Australia's first cinema, the Salon Lumière at 237 Pitt Street, Sydney, was operating in October 1896, and showed the first Australian-produced short film on 27 October 1896.[5]
The Athenaeum Hall in Collins Street, Melbourne, operated as a dance hall from the 1880s, and from time to time would provide alternative entertainment to patrons. In October 1896 it exhibited the first movie film shown in Australia,[6] within a year of the first public screening of a film in Paris on 28 December 1895 by the French Lumière brothers. The Athenaeum would continue screenings, such as Life in Our Navy, a 60,000 foot film of life on HMS Jupiter, shown on 26 January 1901 by G. H. Snazelle, who provided additional entertainment.[7]
The earliest feature-lengthnarrative film in the world was the Australian-produced The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), shown at the Athenaeum. The film, written and directed by Charles Tait, included several of his family members.[13] The film was also exhibited in the United Kingdom in January 1908.[14]
Melbourne also hosted one of the world's first film studios, the Limelight Department, operated by the Salvation Army in Australia between 1897 and 1910.[15] The Limelight Department produced evangelical material for use by the Salvation Army, as well as carrying out private and government contracts. In its 19 years of operation the Limelight Department produced about 300 films of various lengths, making it the largest film-producer of its time. The major innovation of the Limelight Department came in 1899 when Herbert Booth and Joseph Perry began work on Soldiers of the Cross, described by some as the first feature-length film ever produced. Soldiers of the Cross fortified the Limelight Department as a major player in the early film-industry. The Limelight Department also produced a film recording of the Federation of Australia.[16]
Boom and bust – 1910s to 1920s
The 1910s were a "boom" period in Australian cinema. Activity had begun slowly in the 1900s, and 1910 saw four narrative films released, then 51 in 1911, 30 in 1912, and 17 in 1913, and back to four in 1914, when the beginning of World War I brought a temporary pause in film-making.[17] While these numbers may seem small in the 21st century, Australia was one of the most prolific film-producing countries at the time. In all, between 1906 and 1928 Australia made 150 narrative feature films, almost 90 of them between 1910 and 1912.[18]
A general consolidation took place in the early 1910s in the production, distribution and exhibition of films in Australia. By 1912 numerous independent producers had merged into Australasian Films and Union Theaters (now known as Event Cinemas), which established control over film distributors and cinemas and required smaller producers to deal with the cartel. Some view the arrangement as opening the way for American distributors in the 1920s to sign exclusive deals with Australian cinemas to exhibit only their own products, thereby shutting out the local product and crippling the local film-industry.[19]
Various other explanations attempt to account for the decline of the industry in the 1920s. Some historians point to falling audience numbers, a lack of interest in Australian product and narratives, and Australia's participation in the war. Also, an official ban on bushranger films occurred in 1912.[20][21][22] With the suspension of local film-production, Australian cinema-chains sought alternative products in the United States and realised that Australian-produced films were much more expensive than the imported product, which were priced cheaply as production expenses had already been recouped in the home market. To redress this imbalance, the federal government of Australia imposed a tax on imported film in 1914, but this was removed by 1918.[citation needed]
Whatever the explanation, by 1923 American films dominated the Australian market, with 94% of all exhibited films coming from the United States.[23]
1930s–1960s
The old Pacific Cinema at Bulahdelah, New South Wales - a classic example of an early, small, country-town cinema
In 1930, F. W. Thring (1883–1936) established the Efftee Studios based in Melbourne to make talking films using optical sound equipment imported from the United States. The first Australian sound films appeared in 1931: the company produced Diggers (1931), A Co-respondent's Course (1931), The Haunted Barn (1931) and The Sentimental Bloke (1932). During the five years of its existence, Efftee produced nine features, over 80 shorts and several stage-productions. Notable collaborators included C. J. Dennis, George Wallace and Frank Harvey. Film production continued only until 1934, when it ceased as a protest over the refusal of the Australian government to set Australian film-quotas, followed soon by Thring's death in 1936. It was estimated[by whom?] that Thring lost over £75,000 of his own money on his filmmaking and theatrical ventures.[24][need quotation to verify]
Ken G. Hall became a driving force in establishing Cinesound Productions in 1931.[25][26] The company became one of Australia's first feature-film production companies and operated into the early 1940s, becoming Australia's leading domestic studio based on the Hollywood model. The company also used the Hollywood model for the promotion of its films and attempted to promote a star system. It was particularly successful with the On Our Selection (1932) series of comedies, based on the popular writings of author Steele Rudd, which featured the adventures of a fictional Australian farming family, the Rudds, and the perennial father-and-son duo, "Dad and Dave". Despite its ambitions, Cinesound produced only 17 feature-films, all but one of them directed by Ken Hall. Though financially successful, the company ceased making feature films following the 1939 outbreak of World War II.
In the Wake of the Bounty (1933), directed by Charles Chauvel, starred Tasmanian-born Errol Flynn,[27] who went on to Britain and later became a celebrated Hollywood star. Chauvel directed a number of successful Australian films, including 1944's World War II classic The Rats of Tobruk (which starred Peter Finch and Chips Rafferty) and 1955's Jedda, which was notable as the first Australian film shot in colour, and as the first to feature Aboriginal actors in lead roles and to enter the Cannes Film Festival.[28]
In Britain, the Cinematograph Films Act 1927 established a quota of films that had to be shown in British cinemas. One could shoot compliant films in the British Empire as well as in Great Britain; this stimulated Australian film-production. However the Cinematograph Films Act 1938 mollified the British film industry by including only films made by and shot in Great Britain in the quota - this removed Australian films from the film quota in the UK, and saw the loss of a guaranteed market for Australian films.[29]
Kokoda Front Line! (1942), directed by Ken G. Hall, won Australia's first Oscar.[30] Chips Rafferty and Peter Finch became prominent international stars of the period. Rafferty's onscreen image as a lanky, laconic bushman struck a chord with Australian filmgoers, and he appeared in iconic early Australian films such as Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), The Rats of Tobruk (1944), The Overlanders (1946) and Eureka Stockade (1949) (Overlanders and Eureka were part of a series of Australian-themed films produced by Britain's iconic Ealing Studios). In Hollywood, Rafferty also appeared in Australian-themed films, including The Desert Rats (1953), The Sundowners (1960) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). Similarly, Peter Finch starred in quintessentially Australian roles (such as "digger" and stockman) through a series of popular films and had a successful and diverse screen career in Britain and the United States.
Both Ron Randell and Rod Taylor began their acting careers in Australia - initially in radio and on stage before appearing in such Australian films as Smithy (1946) for the former and Long John Silver (1954) for the latter. They each transferred to the United States to become Hollywood leading men in a number of films of the late 1940s (Randell) and both from the 1950s onwards. Taylor had starring roles in The Time Machine (1960) and The Birds (1963) as well as in several American television-series such as Hong Kong (1960-1961).
After filming Whiplash in the country in 1960, Peter Graves said that the biggest problem was the shortage of Australian actors.[31] Australian film-production reached a low ebb with few notable productions during the 1960s.[32] The 1966 comedy They're a Weird Mob, starring Walter Chiari, Chips Rafferty and Claire Dunne, was a rare hit of the period which also documented something of the changing face of Australian society: telling the story of a newly-arrived Italian immigrant who, working as a labourer in Sydney, becomes mates with his co-workers, despite some difficulties with Australian slang and culture. The film foreshadowed the successful approaching "New Wave" of Australian cinema of the 1970s that would often showcase colloquial Australian culture.
John Gorton, Prime Minister of Australia from 1968 to 1971, initiated several forms of government support for film and the arts, including the Australian Film Development Corporation. The Gough Whitlam government (1972–75) continued the support via its successor the Australian Film Commission, and state governments also established assistance programs. These measures led to a resurgence of Australian film-making in both the low budget 16mm format and 35mm cinema - the Australian New Wave - which lasted until the mid-to-late 1980s. The era also marked the emergence of the "Ozploitation" style – characterised by the exploitation of colloquial Australian culture.
Also notable during this era was the effect of the growing feminist movement. The role of women's films was discussed at the Women's Liberation Conference in Melbourne in 1970,[33] and groups such as the Feminist Film Workers collective (1970s and 1980s), Sydney Women"s Film Group (SWFG, 1972–), Melbourne Women's Film Group (1973–), Reel Women (1979 to 1983 in Melbourne), and Women's Film Unit (Sydney and Melbourne, 1984/5) were established.[34] A number of filmmakers, including Jeni Thornley, Sarah Gibson, Susan Lambert, Martha Ansara, Margot Nash and Megan McMurchy, were involved in these groups.[33] The 1975 International Women's Film Festival, the first of its kind,[33] was initiated by the SWFG,[35] but groups around the country organised screening events in other state capitals. In Melbourne and Sydney the festivals ran for nine days (with an audience of around 56,000), and in the other states they spanned two to three days.[36]
1980's Breaker Morant (starring Jack Thompson and Edward Woodward) dramatised the controversial trial of an Australian soldier during the Boer War of 1899-1902; there followed 1981's World War I drama Gallipoli (directed by Peter Weir and starring Mel Gibson). These films, now considered classics of Australian cinema, explored contemporary Australian identity through dramatic episodes in Australian history. Gibson went on to further success in 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously before transferring to pursue his Hollywood career as an actor and director. Many other Australian stars would follow his path to international stardom in the coming decades. The director of The Year of Living Dangerously, Peter Weir, also made a successful transition to Hollywood. Weir contributed to the screenplay along with its original author, Christopher Koch, and playwright David Williamson. Williamson rose to prominence in the early 1970s, and has gone on to write several other original scripts and screenplays made into successful Australian films, including: Don's Party (1976); Gallipoli (1981), Emerald City (1988), and Balibo (2009).[38]
Actor/comedian Paul Hogan wrote the screenplay and starred in the title role in his first film, Crocodile Dundee (1986), about a down-to-earth hunter who travels from the Australian outback to New York City. The movie became the most successful Australian film ever, and launched Hogan's international film career. Following the success of Crocodile Dundee, Hogan starred in the sequel, Crocodile Dundee II in 1988. 1988 also saw the release of the drama Evil Angels (released outside of Australia and New Zealand as A Cry in the Dark)[39] about the Lindy Chamberlain saga, in which a dingo took a baby at Ayers Rock and her mother was accused of having murdered the child.
Nicole Kidman began appearing in Australian children's TV and film in the early 1980s – including starring roles in BMX Bandits and Bush Christmas. During the 1980s she appeared in several Australian productions, including Emerald City (1988), and Bangkok Hilton (1989). In 1989 Kidman starred in Dead Calm alongside Sam Neill and Billy Zane. The thriller garnered strong reviews, and Hollywood roles followed.[40]
"Is everyone in Australia a few degrees off from true north? You can search in vain through the national cinema for characters who are ordinary or even boring; everyone is more colorful than life. If England is a nation of eccentrics, Australia leaves it at the starting line."
Roger Ebert describing the eccentric national character in his review for the film Chopper (2000).[41]
The 1990s proved a successful decade for Australian film and introduced several new stars to a global audience. Low budget films such as the comedy/drama Muriel's Wedding, starring Toni Collette,[42] the gently satirical suburban comedy The Castle directed by Rob Sitch (which cast Eric Bana in his first prominent film role), and Baz Luhrmann's flamboyant Strictly Ballroom[43] each attained commercial and critical success, and explored quirky characters inhabiting contemporary Australian suburbia – marking something of a departure from the Outback and historical sagas which obtained success in the 1970s and 1980s. Stephan Elliott's 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert mixed traditional outback cinematography and landscape with contemporary urban sub-culture: following three drag queens on a road trip to Central Australia.
While a number of major international stars gained early prominence in Australia over the period, an important stable of established and emerging local stars with prodigious film credits remained prominent, including screen veterans Charles Tingwell, Bill Hunter, Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown and Chris Haywood.
The World War II drama Blood Oath (1990) debuted both Russell Crowe and Jason Donovan, in minor cinematic roles. Crowe demonstrated his versatility as an actor in this early period of his career by starring soon after as a street gang Melbourne skinhead in 1992's Romper Stomper and then as an inner-Sydney working-class gay man in 1994's The Sum of Us before transferring to the US to commence his Hollywood career.
After Ledger's successful transition to Hollywood, Jordan and Ledger collaborated again in 2003, with Ledger playing the iconic bushranger title role in the film Ned Kelly, co-starring Australian actress Naomi Watts.
The shifting demographics of Australia following post-war multicultural immigration was reflected in Australian cinema through the period and in successful films like 1993's The Heartbreak Kid; 1999's Looking for Alibrandi; 2003's Fat Pizza; the Wog Boy comedies and 2007's Romulus, My Father which all dealt with aspects of the migrant experience or Australian subcultures.[47]
Rob Sitch and Working Dog Productions followed the success of The Castle with period comedy The Dish, which was the highest grossing Australian film of the Year 2000 and entered the top ten list of highest grossing Australian films. Big budget Australian-international co-productions Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001) and Happy Feet (which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for filmmaker George Miller in 2006) also entered the top ten list during the first decade of the new century. Baz Luhrmann directed a series of international hits and returned to Australia for the production of 2008's Australia, which showcased a host of Australian stars including Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and David Wenham and went on to become the second highest-grossing film in Australian cinematic history.
Lantana, directed by Ray Lawrence attained critical and commercial success in 2001 for its examination of a complex series of relationships in suburban Sydney, and events surrounding a mysterious crime. It won seven AFI Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Anthony LaPaglia and Best Actress for Kerry Armstrong.
The early 2000s were generally not successful years for Australian cinema, with several confronting dramas proving unpopular at the box office. In 2008, no Australian movies made $3 million at the box office, but a conscious decision by filmmakers to broaden the types of films being made as well as the range of budgets produced a series of box-office hits at the close of the decade. Strong box office performances were recorded in 2009–10 by Bruce Beresford's Mao's Last Dancer; the Aboriginal musical Bran Nue Dae the dramatization of John Marsden's novel Tomorrow, When the War Began; and the crime drama Animal Kingdom which featured major Australian screen stars Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce and Jacki Weaver. Animal Kingdom achieved success at the 2010 Australian Film Institute Awards and was acclaimed at film festivals around the world.[48]Tomorrow, When the War Began became the highest-grossing domestic film of 2010 and it was nominated for nine Australian Film Institute Awards.[49][50]
Other award-winning films of the period included Balibo (2009) starring Anthony LaPaglia; Middle Eastern crime flick Cedar Boys (2009) directed by Serhat Caradee; and animated comedy drama Mary and Max.
The Australian film industry continues to produce a reasonable number of films each year, but in common with other English-speaking countries, Australia has often found it difficult to compete with the American film industry,[53] the latter helped by having a much larger home market. The most successful Australian actors and filmmakers are easily lured by Hollywood and rarely return to the domestic film industry. The South Australian Film Corporation continues to produce quality films, and Adelaide has been chosen as the location for films such as Hotel Mumbai (2019).[citation needed]
2020–present
The Australian film and TV industry was greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with at least 60 shoots being halted and around 20,000 people being put of work.[54] On Monday 23 March, all productions funded by Screen Australia were postponed.[55] As of 15 April 2020[update], after some improvement in COVID-19 statistics in Australia, Screen Australia continues to fund work and process applications, intending to use all of its 2019/20 budget.[56]
Gothic films incorporate Gothic elements and can be infused within different genres such as horror, romance, science fiction, and comedy. Australian Gothic films have been an accordant genera ever since the 1970s. Gothic Australian films means to make films that are diverse and use camera techniques in different ways to question what the audience may perceive. One of the Australian Gothic films created by female filmmakers Suzan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka called The Screening of Australia (1987), shows different stylistic thematic terms and was the most successful at showing what is called the ocker, a term to describe a (white) Australian savage man. Other than this, there is a strong relationship between Australian Gothic films and Gothic literature. The characters and the actions that happen in a Gothic novel is created into a Gothic film. Most Gothic novels during the 1970s referred to female characters and their Australian cultural values.[60]
Although the film Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) was directed by a male filmmaker, it was written by storyteller Joan Lindsay. Lindsay decided to make this film culturally related to Australian societal issues of day-to-day lives.[60] Her film included Gothic materials and gave a twist of horror that later the director will showcase through the mise-en-scene and cinematography. The use of Gothic materials were offered by the filmmakers Dermody and Jacka to other Australian Gothic films that have opened up to a more thematic analysis. Other Gothic films were made to broaden Australian characteristics and features. Smoke Em If You Got ‘Em (1988), produced by Jennifer Hooks, showcased the protagonist in a supernatural horrific way, but also added a comedic twist to not lose its characterization of film style.[60]
The Australian film industry has produced a number of successful actors, actresses, writers, directors and filmmakers many of whom have been known internationally.
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^"On and Off the Stage". Table Talk. No. 643. Victoria, Australia. 22 October 1897. p. 13. Retrieved 25 April 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
^"News of the Day". The Age. No. 13, 315. Victoria, Australia. 3 November 1897. p. 4. Retrieved 25 April 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Family Notices". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 23, 766. Victoria, Australia. 6 October 1922. p. 1. Retrieved 26 April 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
^"Australian Inventor". Western Argus. Vol. 40, no. 2253. Western Australia. 22 August 1933. p. 7. Retrieved 25 April 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
^Mulvaney, D. J. (14 July 1929). "Spencer, Sir Walter Baldwin (1860–1929)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Archived from the original on 21 February 2011. Retrieved 8 January 2020. First published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, (MUP), 1990
^Pike, Andrew; Cooper, Ross (1998). Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. pp. 1–49. ISBN9780195507843.
^Albert Moran & Errol Vieth, Historical Dictionary of Australian and New Zealand Cinema, Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2005, 32.
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Murray, Scott, ed. Australian Film: 1978–1994. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN978-0-19-553777-2
Pike, Andrew and Ross Cooper. Australian Film: 1900–1977. revised ed. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN978-0-19-550784-3
McFarland, Brian, Geoff Mayer and Ina Bertrand, eds. The Oxford Companion to Australian Film. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN978-0-19-553797-0
Moran, Albert and Errol Vieth. Historical Dictionary of Australian and New Zealand Cinema. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2005. ISBN978-0-8108-5459-8
Reade, Eric. Australian Silent Films: A Pictorial History of Silent Films from 1896 to 1926. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press, 1970.
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