Dances and Divisions: The Local Country Hall in Australian Films Since 1970

The country town - which sits rather uncomfortably and uneasily in the Australian cultural mythos; between the over-valorised bush on one hand and the denigrated city on the other - has had something of a magnetic attraction for post-1970 filmmakers in Australia. Prior to this, the Australian cinema found the country town of little interest as a site for filmic narratives, save for the occasional silent film in the 1920s and the odd 'off-shore' production such as 'Smiley' and its sequel, 'Smiley Gets a Gun', both produced in the 1950s. What has become known as the new Australian cinema as good as began with a country town film: 'Wake in Fright' (1971). Australian film has continued to be sporadically fascinated with country towns. To the extent that there are some seventy such films at least and that body of films ought to reveal something interesting about representations of and attitudes towards country towns in cultural, social and folkloric perceptions, I will only have space to discuss a handful in what follows but most of my comments are made from a familiarity with nearly all these films.