A history of the New Zealand fiction feature film is the only
comprehensive account of the New Zealand feature film from its
beginnings to the present. Countering tendencies to think of New Zealand
film as beginning in the 1970s, Bruce Babington discloses a longer saga
showing how the present, for all its difference, can only be understood
through the past: Gaston Méliès' New Zealand films of 1912, Tarr's
Hinemoa, the first feature made by a New Zealander, early Australian
film makers' use of New Zealand for an Australasian audience, the
English and American made 'Maoriland' films of the late 1920s and early
1930s, and the crucial works of New Zealand film's two great father
figures, Rudall Hayward and John O'Shea. Such cornerstones of the
national cinema as The Te Kooti Trail, My Lady of the Cave, Rewi's Last
Stand (1940), Broken Barrier, Runaway and Don't Let It Get You are
analysed in detail. Babington surveys the internationally popular films
of recent years, from Murphy's
and Donaldson's, through to those of Reid, Preston, Campion, Ward,
Jackson, Caro, Jeffs, Sinclair, Barclay and others, along with recent
low-cost digitals, and Maori feature film making, allowing the book to
become a reference map of the cinema, its genres, and its
preoccupations, while at the same time giving fascinating detailed
analysis of important texts. A history of the New Zealand fiction
feature film is essential reading for all students and followers of New
Zealand cinema as well as those interested in the local post-colonial
culture and its products.
