Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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film, and the complex issues of national identity expressed within an international
context, while the section on What Dreams May Come focuses on the film’s visual
concept and special effects. Other projects Ward worked on during his years in
Hollywood, such as the commercial he directed and films he acted in, are also briefly
discussed to document his involvement in various aspects of film-making. The final
chapter links back to earlier discussions of Ward as a New Zealand filmmaker by
documenting his return to this country in the hope of realising his script “River Queen”.
Despite the less detailed coverage of the later projects, I feel that the thesis achieves its
main aims by focusing on the emergence of Ward’s aesthetic. The thesis clarifies this
approach by analysing the way it developed – including the director’s background,
training, and cultural sources. The thesis then proceeds to examine his early films in
detail as case studies that help us to understand Ward’s aesthetic in terms of both
practice and theory. While it would have been interesting to make equally detailed
studies of all his films, this would have involved an extremely large thesis and greatly
increased the research time and budget required. In general, I do not see the later films
as significant departures from his earlier aesthetic. This is not to suggest that they are
not deserving of detailed study and I hope that subsequent research can fill in some of
the gaps. At the least, my thesis will provide generalisations – derived primarily from
the earlier films – which can be tested against case studies of later work.
While my thesis is basically chronological, followed by a conclusion that draws
together common threads, it is clear that the vicissitudes of funding and production have
made Ward’s career a highly complex one. Sadly what could have been the organic
unfolding of the vision of an auteur has encountered a number of delays and setbacks –
closer at times to the irregular career of an Orson Welles than to the regular output of
many European auteurs.
This study seeks to fill an important gap in the body of knowledge about New Zealand
film in its examination of the career of Ward as a filmmaker who has had a significant
influence on the development of the New Zealand film industry. In striving to define
Ward’s aesthetic, using Expressionism and Romanticism as useful frames of reference,
the thesis will also consider what differentiates it from that of other New Zealand
filmmakers. As a corollary to this discussion, we will examine the extent to which