AustLit logo

AustLit

Andrew James Couzens Andrew James Couzens i(9615497 works by)
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 Looking to the Future : Three Tendencies in Australian Science Fiction Cinema since 2008 Andrew James Couzens , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Genre Film 2021;
1 ‘Nothing You’re about to See Is True’ : Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang Andrew James Couzens , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 17 no. 2 2020; (p. 388-390)
— Review of True History of the Kelly Gang Shaun Grant , 2018 single work film/TV

'The bushranger Ned Kelly, whose gang evaded the police along the border of New South Wales and Victoria between 1878 and 1880, has been interpreted and reinterpreted. Each configuration draws on history and myth to intervene in Australian political life, from colonial stage productions that used his story to critique institutional injustice to the use of his iconography to embody Australian culture at the 2000 Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony. Following a limited theatrical release, Justin Kurzel’s iteration of the legend, True History of the Kelly Gang, reached the streaming platform Stan on Australia Day 2020. This choice of release date evidently sought to capitalise on the national significance of the film’s subject, a decision that sits uneasily with the film’s unease with Kelly both as a national legend and as a figure of Australian history.' (Introduction)
1 y separately published work icon A Cultural History of the Bushranger Legend in Theatres and Cinemas, 1828–2017 Andrew James Couzens , London : Anthem Press , 2019 15892224 2019 multi chapter work criticism

'‘A Cultural History of the Bushranger Legend in Theatres and Cinemas, 1828–2017’ is a cultural history of the bushranger legend on stage and screen from colonial to contemporary Australia. It provides a detailed analysis of the mechanisms through which bushrangers became an indelible part of the Australian cultural consciousness.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 Cinematic Visions of Australian Colonial Authority in Captain Thunderbolt (1953), Robbery Under Arms (1957) and Eureka Stockade (1949) Andrew James Couzens , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 10 no. 2 2016; (p. 237-249) This paper interrogates representations of colonial authority, in particular the police force, in three films with a colonial Australian setting that were produced following the Second World War by British or Australian producers: the local production Captain Thunderbolt (1953) directed by Cecil Holmes; Jack Lee’s British adaptation of Australian literary classic Robbery Under Arms (1957) and Harry Watt’s Eureka Stockade (1949), which was the British production company Ealing Studios’ second production in Australia. I argue that the three films reflect differing approaches to understanding Australian national identity through their representations of authority, ideologically influenced by left-wing politics, the global marketplace and British imperialism. Where Captain Thunderbolt treats the colonial police and government with the sardonic irony and distance of a resistant community, both Eureka Stockade and Robbery Under Arms reinforce and justify Australia’s colonial administration. By detailing the economic, political and social contexts that contributed to these films, I demonstrate how various interest groups appropriated notions of Australian character and history to suit their ideological goals in line with Richard White’s (1992 White, Richard. 1992 arguments in ‘Inventing Australia’. Turning to history and folklore, these interests – including the Australian government, British media conglomerate the Rank Organisation and various left-wing organisations – infused the past they evoked in these films with new meanings that suited their vision of the future.' (Publication summary)
1 Recalling Romance and Revision in the Film Adaptations of Robbery Under Arms and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith Andrew James Couzens , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Adaptation , March vol. 9 no. 1 2016; (p. 46-57) 'This paper interrogates the adaptation of two literary bushranger narratives to film during the Australian Film Revival in the 1970s and 1980s: The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Fred Schepisi, 1978), an adaptation of Thomas Keneally’s 1972 novel of the same name, which itself was based on the true story of Jimmy Governor, and Donald Crombie and Ken Hannam’s 1985 adaptation of Rolf Boldrewood’s 1889 novel Robbery Under Arms, a text that has seen numerous other adaptations on both stage and screen. Analysis of these case studies demonstrates that the narratives’ ideological positions regarding Australia’s past can be understood in relation to the western genre, their narrative structures, selective deviations from their respective source materials, and the similitude of their bushranger characters to Graham Seal’s ‘outlaw legend’. I relate each film’s ideological stance on bushranging to its production context and argue that Robbery Under Arms depicts a romantic idealisation of Australian history that is closer to Alfred Dampier and Garnet Walch’s 1890 stage melodrama version than the original novel in its appeal to populist nationalism, while The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith attempts a visual translation of the novel’s revisionist approach to bushranger and colonial legends.' (Publication abstract)
X