New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History

New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History

Edited by: Diane Pivac and Frank Stark

Published by Te Papa Press - Wellington, New Zealand - Copyright 2011

215mm x 270mm - 360 pages containing 400+ images and 100 minute DVD
Hardbound - $85nz; $75au - Shipping weight approx. 1.9 kg

ISBN 9781877385667


Aotearoa has always had a soft spot for the silver screen. Moving pictures were first screened here in 1896 to a curious and captivated audience and they've loved watching them and making them, ever since.
'New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History' sets a course through New Zealand's history in film, starting when professors Hausmann and Gow introduced "Edison's latest marvel, the Kinematograph" as part of a vaudeville programme of short films; through the hokey-pokey era of gritty kiwiana classics like 'Goodbye Pork Pie' and 'Smash Palace'; and into the flash modern era when Wellington has become synonymous with cutting edge digital cinema technology.
Featuring many previously unseen images and unheard anecdotes, the book chronicles the journey through 11 chapters, featuring 25 essays penned by some of New Zealand's most respected writers, film makers, industry insiders and fans - including a foreward by one of the biggest fans of New Zealand cinema, Sir Ian McKellen.
It is a comprehensive celebration of more than a century's worth of local film ranging from the first cinema screening and magic lantern shows to the 19th century through the determined development of an industry infrastructure and the establishment of the Film Societies and Film Festivals in the mid-20th century, to the many ingenious technical innovations and the post-Jackson Effect professionalism of the present day.
Television, we were once told, would render film obsolete. When that didn't happen, the prophecy was updated - digital media would do it. This hasn't happened yet and readers of this book might understand why. Digital or analogue, in a fleapit or multiplex, there's still no experience to match the moment when the house lights dim and the beam of the projector shines out over our heads, transporting us into the world of light and shade.
This is not a book about the New Zealand film industry of the past tens years or even the past 35 years; it is an extensive, yet compact education into New Zealand film history from its beginnings at the end of the 19th Century to the first decade of the 21st Century. For those wishing to go into further details, there are extensive reference notes as well as recommended books, articles, theses and periodical sources listed. To add icing on the cake, a 100 minute DVD is included that contains 52 clips of films from 1900 to 2010. Although this is the first book I have purchased that contains an "M" rating from NZ censors, I definately recommend it.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword by Ian McKellen - page ix
Preface by Frank Stark - page xi
Introduction by Roger Horrocks - page 1
Chapter 01 - The Magic of Moving Pictures: Film Making 1895-1918 - Chris Pugsley - page 29
Chapter 02 - The Rise of Fiction: Between the Wars - Diane Pivac - page 53
Chapter 03 - Non-Fiction Films: Between the Wars - Clive Sowry - page 79
Chapter 04 - Political and Alternative Film Making: From the Second World War to 1950 - Geraldene Peters - page 103
Chapter 05 - From Holland to Hoyoake: Film in the 1950s and 1960s - Lawrence McDonald - page 129
Chapter 06 - Waking from a Fretful Sleep: Film in the 1970s - Lawrence McDonald - page 155
Chapter 07 - Boom Times: The early 1980s - Bruce Babington - page 181
Chapter 08 - After the Boom: The second half of the 1980s - Frank Stark - page 207
Chapter 09 - New Currents in the Mainstream: The 1990s - Ann Hardy - page 231
Chapter 10 - The 'Jackson Effect': The late 1990s to 2005 - Geoff Lealand - page 259
Chapter 11 - Into the Blue: Film Making in the early Twenty-First Century - Frank Stark - page 283
Acknowledgements - page 310
Notes - page 312
Recommended Reading - page 325
Contributors - page 328
Image Credits - page 331
DVD Contents - page 332
Index - page 335



REVIEWS - RETAIL LINKS - MISC

Tom Cardy Review in The Dominion Post

John Daly-Peoples Review in The National Business Review

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