Brian McFarlane

Not many can boast of careers that lasted successfully for nearly seventy years, but that is what both Googie Withers and John McCallum achieved. Googie portrayed everything from brazen murderesses to Lady Bracknell, taking in blonde nitwits, wartime Resistance workers, lady farmers, and Shakespeare along the way. John not only performed memorably in all the acting media but was also...

This is a book for all those who have been absorbed and moved by Brief Encounter in the seventy or so years since its first appearance. It explores the central relationship of the film, where two people who fall unexpectedly in love come to realise that there is more to life than self-gratification. Mores have undoubtedly changed, for better or...

Studying the role of the Western film genre in Australia's changing political and cultural landscape. Focusing on the influence of the cinematic Western in Australian cinema history, Outback explores how the American genre has been adapted to the changing Australian social, political, and cultural contexts of their production, including the shifting emphases in the representation of the Indigenous population. Brian...

Focusing on the incidence of the ‘Westerns’ film genre in the 120-odd years of Australian cinema history, Outback explores how the American genre has been adapted to the changing Australian social, political and cultural contexts of their production, including the shifting emphases in the representation of the Indigenous population. The idea for the book came to the author while he...