Sheep and the Australian Cinema
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Sheep and the Australian Cinema is available as both an e-book (downloadable PDF files) or a d-book (print-on-demand). Both versions are available for online purchase at the MUP e-store.

In this highly readable study of Australian cinema, Deb Verhoeven explores the relationship between a series of films produced in different periods of Australian history that are linked by a common thread—the repeated image of sheep.

The book focuses on two key ‘sheep films’: The Squatter’s Daughter (Hall, 1933) and Bitter Springs (Smart, 1950). Both movies are concerned with the national project, in which sheep growing and nation building are seamlessly aligned. But Verhoeven artfully demonstrates that it is precisely in their emphasis on textual re-iteration and repetition that the sheep films critique an otherwise ostensibly 'national' vision.

In the process Verhoeven sheds new light on the importance and implication of discourses of originality in the Australian cinema.

Chapter Synopses

 

Introduction

The Introduction to Sheep and the Australian Cinema is available as a free download.

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Coda

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Filmography

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References

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Part 1 - Sheep thinking or thinking sheep: Philosophy's animal within

Chapter 1: One, two sheep perchance to dream

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Part 2 - When our clips speak together: The Squatter's Daughter, national origins and cultural continuity

Chapter 2: A gathering of sheep is the scene of a decapitation, or How Ken G. Hall lost his head

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Chapter 3: When familiarity breeds: Contempt, disability and national cinema

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Chapter 4: Origins interrupted: Splitting heirs and forebears

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Part 3 - One man's meat: Bitter Springs, assimilation and sheep

Chapter 5: Tea and sympathy and a thirst for sheep

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Chapter 6: Another man’s mutton … Assimilation and Aboriginal agency

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Chapter 7: Rethinking (like) a sheep, acting like a ham

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