ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, I was concerned with the standing of Australian cinema as a generalizable entity; in this chapter I am concerned with the routine accomplishment of meaning with respect to Australian films. How do film-makers, critics, audiences and policy-makers make meaning from Australian films? They interpret it and value it in a number of ways. They relate a film or television series to society and public discourse. They compare it to other Australian films, television productions, novels, theatre and poems. They think about its continuities and discontinuities with British, European and Hollywood productions. They find it either entertaining or informing, or diverting and educational. They berate it for surrendering to commercial values. They castigate it for capitulating to middle-class ‘good intentions’. Through such diverse interpretative acts, films and television programmes-like the larger audiovisual culture they are a part ofhave diverse public careers.
