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Huw Walmsley-Evans Huw Walmsley-Evans i(9985318 works by)
Gender: Male
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1 1 The Emergence of Australian Film Criticism Tom O'Regan , Huw Walmsley-Evans , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television , vol. 38 no. 2 2017; (p. 296-321) '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)
1 The Slow Death of Australian Children’s TV Drama Anna Potter , Huw Walmsley-Evans , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 27 April 2017;

'Australian children’s TV may have recently picked up an Emmy Kids award for the ABCME animation Doodles, but otherwise kids’ TV in this country is in a dire state.

'Free-to-air TV networks have to commission certain amounts of children’s programs each year. But in recent years there’s been a dismaying lack of new live action shows, or recognisably Australian content. Instead, local children’s TV has become dominated by animation with little sense of place.'
1 1 The Film Reviewing of Kenneth Slessor : A Cine-aesthetics of the Sound Cinema Tom O'Regan , Huw Walmsley-Evans , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 10 no. 2 2016; (p. 211-222) 'This paper examines the film reviews of Kenneth Slessor, an Australian poet, journalist and war correspondent best known for his contributions to Australian poetry between the two world wars. His film reviews of early Hollywood, British, and Australian sound cinema were an important part of his journalism at Smith’s Weekly from 1931 to 1940. Mostly overlooked until recently these reviews reveal a sophisticated approach towards the new (sound) cinema. The criteria he advanced for evaluating film and the range of qualities he discerned, criticised and celebrated in films were based on appreciating film as a unique artform with its own formal repertoire and modes of production. While such standpoints are now familiar in film reviewing, at the time he was writing such standpoints were just coming into being. Close attention to Slessor’s film reviewing discloses a fecund critical imagination attuned to cinema’s range. He deserves wider recognition as a distinctive voice on the cinema in general and Australian cinema in particular.' (Publication abstract)
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