Senses 31.

"For this issue, we considered launching a wide-ranging investigation into the current state of Australian film culture," writes Senses of Cinema co-editor Jake Wilson, introducing the new issue, #31. "Then we realised this would bore everyone to tears." Why? Well, because it'd likely turn out to be "the same old song, and it's likely that anyone who cares will know the words already." In brief, the way funding's currently structured in Australia, to hear Wilson tell it, "auteurist" careers cannot be sustained. You make a film, make a splash and disappear.

Yahoo Serious

Fortunately, the same cannot be said of Australian online film criticism, or more specifically, Senses. And the April - June 2004 issue is, once again, plentiful:

• Australian cinema is addressed anyway in two articles: Cat Hope on sound design in Rolf de Heer's films and Christos Tsiolkas on how watching One Perfect Day has soured him on the country's recent films in general.

• Two hefty theoretical pieces: Anne Rutherford on mise en scène in Ulysses' Gaze and Paul Grant's report from a symposium on Serge Daney.

• Features galore: Sue Gillet on In the Cut, Dave Oubiña on recent Argentinian cinema, Wendy Haslem on Lost in Translation, Jorge Didaco on Brazilian filmmaker Rogério Sganzerla, Yaniv Eyny and A Zubatov on Irreversible, Tag Gallagher on John Ford's career up to 1947, Philip Matthews on three DV features from New Zealand, Cara O'Connor on AKA and a conversation with its director, Duncan Roy, and a wonderfully absurd read from Simon Strong (much more here): "There are some obvious refutations to the courageous hypothesis that the riots of May 1968 were triggered by the premiere of [Jean] Rollin's film [Le Viol du Vampire (The Rape of the Vampire)]," but he's not having any of them.

• A section on politics and docs includes a robust collection of excerpts from conversations with "America's most influential political documentary filmmaker," Emile de Antonio, gathered by Bruce Jackson; Tom Ryan's interview with Errol Morris; and Tara Brabazon on Brit pop doc Live Forever.

• The book reviews (for some odd reason, always a favorite in any film magazine): Niels Buch-Jepsen on two books on African cinema ("Some critics have insinuated that African film finds itself practically at a standstill, but both [June] Givanni's and [Frank] Ukadike's volumes show that this is far from the case"); Linda Rui Feng on a collection of essays on Chinese cinema; Tony McKibbin on Goran Gocic on Emir Kusturica and on Leos Carax, "on the one hand a study of Leos Carax's work; on the other an attempt, if you like, to make British criticism more French"; Ken Mogg on a book with a great title, Dickens and the Dream of Cinema; Jay Weissberg reviews Film Front Weimar; and Lesley Chow on a book about the science of onscreen chemistry.

• Festivals: Bérénice Reynaud at Sundance and Carloss James Chamberlin at Slamdance; Genevieve Yue in Rotterdam and Kevin Lee in Berlin; Brandon Wee in Bangkok; and Ioannis Mookas at the NY Underground Film Festival.

• Eight names have been added to the collection of essays on Great Directors: Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Kon Ichikawa, Vincente Minnelli, Nagisa Oshima, François Ozon, John Sayles and Fred Zinneman.

• Plus more top tens and, of course, links.

Yes, that'll probably do until July.

Posted by dwhudson at April 21, 2004 1:40 PM