AustLit

'In this article, we trace the emergence of film criticism in Australia, from the period of its first appearance in the 1920s to its formalisation in the academy in the 1970s. Through an examination of trade, fan, newspaper and journal publications, we identify along the way four significant moments when broader industrial, public and institutional configurations gave rise to different kinds of film criticism: an ‘independent commentary moment’ (the 1920s), a ‘film as film moment’ (1930s), a ‘film appreciation moment’ (1950s–1960s) and a ‘production principle moment’ (1970s). Each attended to some new way of taking up and being with film and is associated with its own particular array of practices. This historical trajectory of film criticism was characterised by increasing complexity and variety. Rather than replacing or displacing existing forms, each new form of film criticism built upon existing forms, produced new layerings and relations among critical forms. Using Bennett’s [Making Culture, Changing Society (Abingdon, 2013), 125.] perspectives on the relation between culture and government, we identify film criticism as a form of expertise for adjudicating films and guiding their uptake. In this way, we show film criticism as being shaped not only by the shifting priorities of film and the film world, but also by broader contingencies of media, education and public culture. This lens reveals an important Australian difference when compared to the US, Britain and continental Europe: the Australian uptake of a film-as-film aesthetics in longer form film writing and reviewing is very much a response to and a consequence of the coming of sound rather than of the late silent period. We end with some remarks on the contribution this national trajectory of film reviewing made to the formation of film writing in the Australian academy and to the revival of Australian film-making, which both began in earnest in the 1970s.' (Publication abstract)