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Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 A Happy and Instructive Haunting : Revising the Child, the Gothic and the Australian Cinema Revival in Storm Boy (2019) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018)
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'A recent spate of remakes of film titles dating from the Australian cinema revival in the 1970s suggests a renewed interest in this significant corpus. It has a deeper resonance insofar as the original films also represent landmarks in Australian Gothic aesthetics. In two of these productions, Storm Boy (2019) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018), the renewal of the Gothic discourses and the allied figure of the child are inflected by an optimistic vein of “post-millennial Gothic”. It is apparent in the styling and in the post-feminist and cultural consciousness of both productions, and the sense in which both remakes provide resolutions to the earlier films and embed layers of contemporary social pedagogy in the revised Gothic scenarios. Both of these productions suggest a recognition that the films of the cinema revival may not speak to a current generation, and this dissonance is particularly apparent in the revised figure of the lost child in the remakes.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Journal of Australian Studies vol. 45 no. 1 2021 21480491 2021 periodical issue

    'Our first issue of 2021 brings with it the charge of a new year, a ticking over of the clock from the now infamous 2020. For many, this year is already no easier than the last, and the challenges of the pandemic continue for our global community. Despite this, there is always change in the wind. As we write this editorial, US President Trump’s last days in office signal a potential reset of the cooperative international relations required to address the other global threat somewhat overshadowed by the virus—the unfolding climate crisis—and La Niña has a hold on the weather patterns of the Australian continent, forestalling the catastrophic bushfires we saw last year, bringing with it much-needed rain across parts of the country. This collection of articles includes engagements with both climate crisis and Australian landscapes and regions, and takes us into diverse imaginative and poetic environments through a range of textual and historical explorations of Australian cultural life.' (Emily Potter, Brigid Magner : Land, Sky, Identity and Myth: Making and Unmaking Australian Imaginaries Editorial introduction)

    2021
    pg. 46-60
Last amended 7 Apr 2021 12:53:30
46-60 A Happy and Instructive Haunting : Revising the Child, the Gothic and the Australian Cinema Revival in Storm Boy (2019) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018)small AustLit logo Journal of Australian Studies
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