Brian McFarlane (writer)

Last updated

Brian McFarlane
BornBrian Campbell McFarlane
1934 (age 90–91)
Victoria, Australia
OccupationWriter
Film historian
School teacher
University lecturer
Film critic
Alma mater University of Melbourne (BA & DipEd)
University of East Anglia (PhD)
GenreNon-fiction
Subject Cinema
Years active1950s–present
Notable worksOxford Companion to Australian Film
The Encyclopedia of British Film

Brian Campbell McFarlane (born 1934) is an Australian writer, film historian, and educator. He has had three overlapping careers: as a secondary school teacher, a full-time academic, and a writer. Known for co-editing and/or authoring such works as the Oxford Companion to Australian Film, The Encyclopedia of British Film, and The British 'B' film, he is also a film critic and an internationally known expert on British cinema. He spent his final ten years of full-time work at Monash University in Melbourne.

Contents

Early life and education

Brian Campbell McFarlane [1] was born in 1934 [2] [3] and grew up in the Wimmera district of Victoria, Australia, before World War II. He saw his first film when he was five years old, and wrote his first film review at the age of ten. His family moved from the village of Lillimur to Nhill, a bigger regional town. Despite the facts that the films were only released there years after their original release in the UK or US, and that his parents were suspicious of movies as corrupting influence, his love of film grew. [4]

Aged 16, he moved to Melbourne to study English and French at university, [4] graduating with a BA and DipEd from the University of Melbourne. [5]

McFarlane completed his MA in Australian literature at Melbourne University, and later undertook his PhD at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, Norfolk, England. His PhD thesis in the field of literary adaptation to film. [5]

Career

Teaching: secondary

After graduation, McFarlane returned to teach at a secondary school in Terang, also in regional Victoria. He enjoyed considerable success as a high school teacher and administrator, [4] teaching in Australia, England, and the United States. For 15 years before ending his teaching career, he taught at Trinity Grammar School in the Melbourne suburb of Kew. During this period, he won a Fulbright Scholarship to teach at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, Michigan, US. [5]

Teaching: tertiary

After several periods doing part-time tutoring at the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University while still at Trinity Grammar, McFarlane became a full-time academic. [5] From 2007 until 2009, he was visiting professor at the University of Hull in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. [5]

He spent his final decade of work in the English department at Monash University, teaching literature and film, with a focus on British cinema and literary adaptations. [5] Sometime before 2011, McFarlane was appointed adjunct associate professor at Monash. [4] [6] [7]

In 2012 McFarlane was appointed adjunct professor at the Swinburne Institute of Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology, [8] and as of December 2024 holds the position. [9]

Writing

McFarlane has authored or edited more than 30 books [5] and hundreds of articles relating to film and literature and associated topics, including co-editing the Oxford Companion to Australian Film, and as chief author and compiler of The Encyclopedia of British Film. He is world-renowned as an authority on British cinema, and on adaptations of literature to film. [6] He has also contributed entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . [10] [11] [12]

He co-authored The British 'B' film with Steve Chibnall, which at its time of publication (by Palgrave Macmillan in association with the British Film Institute) in 2009, was described by its publishers as "the first book to provide a thorough examination of the British 'B' movie, from the war years to the 1960s". [2] Senses of Cinema called it a "valuable resource book" and a "meticulous book [that] systematically examines the cultural policy, production economics and audience demand for the low-budget British film between 1940 and 1965". [13] As of 2024 it is still in print. [14]

He regularly reviews films and books in The Age , Australian Book Review , Metro , Inside Story, [6] [15] [16] and the online journal Senses of Cinema . [17]

Other activities

McFarlane has served on the editorial boards of various cinema-related journals in Australia, the UK, and the US. He has also been an examiner of PhD theses and book proposals from those countries. [5]

He voted for ten films in the Sight and Sound's "Greatest Films of All Time", which were listed on the British Film Institute website. His top film is Brief Encounter (1945). [18]

Recognition and honours

Personal life

McFarlane married Geraldine, and they had three children. He lives in Melbourne. [20]

He was a longtime friend of actress Googie Withers, and upon her death in July 2011, wrote an obituary for her in The Sydney Morning Herald . [21]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swinburne University of Technology</span> Public university in Hawthorn, Australia

The Swinburne University of Technology is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia. It is the modern descendant of the Eastern Suburbs Technical College established in 1908, renamed Swinburne Technical College in 1913 after its co-founders George and Ethel Swinburne. It has three campuses in metropolitan Melbourne: Hawthorn, where its main campus is located; Wantirna; and Croydon, as well the Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak. It also offers courses online and through its partnered institutions in Australia and overseas.

Richard Lowenstein is an Australian filmmaker. He has written, produced and directed feature films such as Strikebound (1984), Dogs in Space (1986) and He Died with a Felafel in His Hand (2001); music videos for bands such as INXS and U2; concert performance films, Australian Made: The Movie (1987) and U2: LoveTown (1989); TV adverts, and the documentaries We're Livin' on Dog Food (2009), Autoluminescent (2011), Ecco Homo (2015) and Mystify: Michael Hutchence (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gillian Armstrong</span> Australian film director (born 1950)

Gillian May Armstrong is an Australian feature film and documentary director, best known for My Brilliant Career (1979), Mrs. Soffel (1984), High Tide (1987), The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992), and Little Women (1994). She is a Member of the Order of Australia. She has won many film awards, including an AFI Best Director Award, has been nominated for numerous others, and is the holder of several honorary doctorates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phillip Noyce</span> Australian filmmaker (born 1950)

Phillip Roger Noyce is an Australian film and television director. Since 1977, he has directed over 19 feature films in various genres, including historical drama ; thrillers ; and action films. He has also directed the Jack Ryan adaptations Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), as well as the 2014 adaptation of Lois Lowry's The Giver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Schepisi</span> Australian director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1939)

Frederic Alan Schepisi is an Australian film director, producer, and screenwriter. His credits include The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Plenty, Roxanne, A Cry in the Dark, Mr. Baseball, Six Degrees of Separation, and Last Orders.

<i>Cloudburst</i> (1951 film) 1951 British film by Francis Searle

Cloudburst is a 1951 British crime drama film produced by Hammer Films, directed by Francis Searle, starring Robert Preston and featuring Elizabeth Sellars, Harold Lang, Colin Tapley and Sheila Burrell. The script, by Searle and Leo Marks, is based on the play of the same name by Marks, a wartime cryptographer for the Special Operations Executive, and later the author of a memoir about his wartime work, Between Silk and Cyanide (1998).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Franklin (director)</span> Australian film director (1948–2007)

Richard Franklin was an Australian film director.

Full Circle is a play by Alan Melville adapted from "Les Enfants d'Edouard" by Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon and Frederick J. Jackson. It also was produced in 1944 with the title Slightly Scandalous, lasting only one week.

Nickel Queen is a 1971 Australian comedy film starring Googie Withers and directed by her husband John McCallum. The story was loosely based on the Poseidon bubble, a nickel boom in Western Australia in the late 1960s, and tells of an outback pub owner who stakes a claim and finds herself an overnight millionaire.

<i>The Tell-Tale Heart</i> (1960 film) 1960 British film by Ernest Morris

The Tell-Tale Heart is a 1960 British second feature ('B') horror film directed by Ernest Morris and starring Laurence Payne, Adrienne Corri and Dermot Walsh. It was produced by the Danzigers. The screenplay by Brian Clemens and Eldon Howard is a loose adaptation of the 1843 short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. The film was released in England in December 1960, and in the U.S. in February 1962 as The Hidden Room of 1,000 Horrors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lance Comfort</span> English film director (1908–1966)

Lance Comfort was an English film director. He was a prolific maker of B movies from 1945 to 1965.

The Naked Bunyip is a 1970 Australian documentary film directed by John B. Murray. The film explores sex in Australia using a fictional framework.

<i>Assassin for Hire</i> 1951 British film by Michael McCarthy

Assassin for Hire is a 1951 British crime film directed by Michael McCarthy and starring Sydney Tafler, Ronald Howard and Katharine Blake. Its plot follows a contract killer who becomes stricken with remorse when he is led to believe he has murdered his brother.

Nigel Buesst was an Australian filmmaker from Melbourne. After graduating B.Com in 1960 from Melbourne University he headed overseas to London and worked as an assistant editor at Shepparton Studios.

Swinburne Film and Television School was a film school that was part of Swinburne Technical College from 1966 until 1991. The college offered the first tertiary course in filmmaking in Australia, and was founded and led for many years by filmmaker Brian Clark Robinson. In 1991, owing to funding difficulties, management of the school was handed over to the Victorian College of the Arts, becoming the VCA Film and Television School. The many notable alumni of Swinburne Film and Television School include directors Gillian Armstrong, Garth Davis, Richard Lowenstein, and Sarah Watt, and cartoonist Michael Leunig.

<i>The Fall of the House of Usher</i> (1950 film) 1950 British film

The Fall of the House of Usher is a 1950 British horror film directed by Ivan Barnett and starring Gwen Watford in her film debut, Kaye Tendeter and Irving Steen. The screenplay was by Dorothy Catt and Kenneth Thompson, adapted from the 1839 short story of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe.

<i>The Strange Awakening</i> 1958 British film by Montgomery Tully

The Strange Awakening is a 1958 British second feature film directed by Montgomery Tully, starring Lex Barker and Carole Mathews. It was written by J. McLaren Ross based on the 1946 novel Puzzle for Fiends by Hugh Wheeler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mignon O'Doherty</span> Australian actress (1890–1961)

Mignon O'Doherty was an Australian actress who worked in British theatre, film and television.

<i>Life in Her Hands</i> 1951 film by Philip Leacock

Life in Her Hands is a 1951 drama film sponsored by the British Ministry of Labour with the aim of recruiting women to the nursing profession. It was produced in response to addressing the short supply of qualified nurses in Britain after the Second World War, caused to some degree by the needs of the newly founded National Health Service (NHS). It was produced by the Crown Film Unit and distributed widely across all major cinemas by United Artists. The film was written by Anthony Steven and Monica Dickens, and directed by Philip Leacock. The cast included Bernadette O'Farrell, Jenny Laird, Jean Anderson and Kathleen Byron.

The Monarch Film Corporation was a British film distribution company active during the 1940s and 1950s. It specialised in supplying second features to British cinemas. The company handled a mixture of British and American films, as well as the Australian film Strong Is the Seed. It involved itself in production at times, and produced several more ambitious features including Hindle Wakes (1952) and A Yank in Ermine (1956). It had an arrangement with ACT Films under John Croydon to handle films made at Walton Studios. The 1952 adventure film Men Against the Sun (1952) was, unusually for the second feature market, a costume adventure film despite its running time.

References

  1. 1 2 "Name: Dr Brian Campbell McFarlane: Award: Centenary Medal". Australian Honours Search Facility. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia) . Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 "The British 'B' film". Internet Archive. 23 October 2016. Retrieved 20 December 2024.
  3. ↑ "McFarlane, Brian (1934-)". Trove . Retrieved 20 December 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "The (reel) life of Brian". Monash University . 6 September 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Fellow Profile". Australian Academy of the Humanities . Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Brian McFarlane". Monash University Publishing. 28 July 2022. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Brian McFarlane: Biography". Bloomsbury. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  8. ↑ "Swinburne celebrates Australia Day 2016". Swinburne. January 2016. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  9. ↑ "Our people". Swinburne. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  10. ↑ McFarlane, Brian. "Scott, Margaretta Mary Winifred (1912–2005), actress.", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 6 January 2011. Oxford University Press
  11. ↑ McFarlane, Brian. "Ealing Studios (act. 1907–1959)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/93789.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  12. ↑ McFarlane, Brian. "Ealing Studios (act. 1907–1959)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/93789.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  13. ↑ Mayer, Geoff (October 2010). "The British "B" Film by Stephen Chibnall and Brian McFarlane". Senses of Cinema (56). Retrieved 20 December 2024.
  14. ↑ "The British 'B' film". Bloomsbury. Retrieved 20 December 2024.
  15. ↑ "Brian McFarlane Archives". Inside Story. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 "Brian McFarlane". Australian Book Review . Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  17. ↑ "Brian McFarlane". Senses of Cinema . 18 July 2000. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  18. ↑ "Brian McFarlane". BFI. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  19. ↑ "Name: Dr Brian Campbell McFarlane: Award: Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM)". Australian Honours Search Facility. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia) . Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  20. ↑ "Brian McFarlane". Sidharta Books & Print. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  21. ↑ "Assured leading lady of the screen took no nonsense". The Sydney Morning Herald. 18 July 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  22. ↑ "New Australian Cinema, by Brian McFarlane and Geoff Mayer". Variety Bookroom. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
  23. ↑ "Outback". Intellect Books. 26 November 2024. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.