Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

59
Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994), Te Rua (Barry Barclay, 1991), Crush (Alison
McLean, 1992), Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994), and Broken English (Gregor
Nicholas, 1996). McDonnell refers to the background to many of these films as being a
“brooding, ominous (even Gothic) landscape into which the hero retreats but where he
seldom feels at home”. 199
Most of the films mentioned by McDonnell do not necessarily have stylistic features
which identify them as Gothic, but it could be argued that “kiwi Gothic” is better
described as relating to “affect” rather than style or genre. However, at a recent
conference on the Antipodean Gothic, Ian Conrich classified certain New Zealand films
into categories (or sub-genres) of Gothic film. 200 Peter Jackson’s Braindead (1992),
The Frighteners (1996) and Bad Taste (1986) were classified, according to Conrich, as
belonging to the Gothic sub-genre of “Gothic grotesque”; The Piano and Vigil were
classified as “rural Gothic”; and The Navigator and Desperate Remedies (Stewart Main
and Peter Wells, 1993), were classified as “historical Gothic”. Conrich also included in
his list of “kiwi Gothic” films, several short films such as The Singing Trophy (Grant
Lahood, 1993) and Homekill (Andrew Bancroft, 2000), which he classified as “farming
Gothic”. Conrich argued that in New Zealand Gothic, there is an “implosion of
binaries” including: domestic/wild, seen/unseen, known/unknown, community/outsider,
mastery/slave (referring to the pioneers’ desire to master the land), and
abundance/excess. Similarly, Estella Tincknell argues that The Piano appropriates a
number of features of the Gothic melodrama genre. 201
It could perhaps be better argued that while there are a few New Zealand films which
can be seen as having stylistic or generic features originating from the European Gothic
tradition, this tradition has been ‘translated’ into a local, New Zealand form of Gothic.
The European Gothic tradition for example, is associated with naturalised settings that
have a deep sense of interiority. The “kiwi Gothic” tradition is more interested in the
landscape having psychological undertones. This anthropomorphic interpretation of the
landscape is a feature which Neill and Rymer identify as typical of the aesthetic of the
199
Brian McDonnell, Fresh Approaches to Film (Auckland: Addison, Wesley, Longman NZ Ltd, 1998)
22.
200
Ian Conrich, "A Perilous Paradise: New Zealand's Cinema of the Gothic," Antipodean Gothic
Symposium (Massey University, Albany: 2002), vol.
201
Ian Conrich and David Woods, eds., New Zealand - a Pastoral Paradise? (Nottingham, England:
Kakapo Books, 2000).