Introduction: The nationalities of the cinema. The prehistory of Australian cinema. Representing the nation. The valuable territory. The big country. The Australian abroad. Reading the national cinema
Australian gothic: Origins. The gothic rural community. The Mad Max trilogy. The urban gothic
The period film: The AFC genre. Picnic at Hanging Rock and the literary adaptation. The period film cycle. Fred Schepisi's period films. Newsfront, the nation on record. Sirens, the parody of the period film
The male ensemble film: Australian-ness and masculinity. The working environment. Sexual politics. The sporting life. The personal factor, Between wars. Sons of Anzac, The odd angry shot. Parabolic history. Landscape cinema. Male drama and the mini-series. Males and mateship in '90s cinema.
New glamour, new gothic: Australian films in the 1990s: The quota quirky. The Australian Film Finance Corporation. New gothic. The rite of passage film. Australian road movies. Glamour, kitsch and camp.
