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Loving and Hating Hollywood challenges audiences and filmmakers

07 May 2009

The film industry has been a global industry since it began and a new book by a Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer argues for the need for a more mature understanding and acceptance of the dynamic interaction between various national cinema cultures and Hollywood.

 

The book, Loving & Hating Hollywood – Reframing global and local cinema by Dr Jane Mills, Associate Professor (Teaching and Research) at the CSU School of Communication, was launched in Bathurst on Thursday 7 May by the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at CSU, Professor Anthony Cahalan.

 

Loving & Hating Hollywood examines the mixed reactions to the influence of Hollywood on national and local cinemas, and asserts that the influence of Hollywood, home of film production in the United States, is often viewed with unnecessary antagonism around the world.

 

Speaking at the book launch, Professor Cahalan said that university researchers are called upon to make an original contribution to knowledge, to reveal, be articulate about and involve themselves in areas that no-one has described before.

 

“In the case of her new book, Loving & Hating Hollywood, Associate Professor Jane Mills' research brings together, feeds and enhances her teaching, her supervision of research students and adds previously undescribed dimensions to professional practice in filmmaking and film theory.

 

“Jane challenges filmmakers, film critics and audiences to embrace diversity in the film world and not simply accept Hollywood as ‘a homogenous and homogenising monolith’. She exhorts us to ‘call into question longstanding arguments for the globally dominant cinema’s position as the centrally defining factor of all other cinemas’.”

 

Professor Mills told guests at the launch that cinema had been an art form for more than 100 years, and it is in a state of constant reinvention due to the interactions between cinemas, films, filmmakers and audiences, wherever they are.

 

“It makes more sense to look at the constant give and take between film cultures in an industry that has been globalised since the very beginnings of cinema,” Professor Mills said.

 

“If we focus on a negative view of Hollywood, we ignore or fail to see how all cinemas influence each other. This influence often results in exciting new films and types of cinemas which push the boundaries of film art.”

ends

Media Officer	: Bruce Andrews
Telephone	: 02 63386084

Media Note: Contact CSU Media to arrange interviews with Associate Professor Jane Mills. Loving & Hating Hollywood – Reframing global and local cinema is published by Allen & Unwin.