Film In Preview

There’s a tendency to think of the ‘comic book movie’ as a recent phenomenon; a hallmark of ‘00s cinema and the juvenilisation of culture. But as Amanda Slack-Smith discovered while curating GoMA’s ‘Drawn To Screen’ program, the tradition goes back much further than that.

"What my research really brought out,” she says, “is just how many adaptations there have been, and for how long. The first adaptation [Britain’s ‘Ally Sloper’, adapted from Charles H. Ross’ comic strip] was back in 1898... that's practically the birth of cinema! It's amazing to think they were adapting comic strips way back then.

“You start to realise how big the scope of it is… manga alone has spawned over 2000 adaptations. Comics are considered differently in the rest of the world than they are in America, Australia and the UK. There is a feeling here that comics are all about superheroes and they’re not particularly mature. I think that attitude is changing now because of things like 'The Dark Knight', but in other countries there's such a love of the drawn narrative, without question, and the amount of adaptations is huge.

“Because comics are a medium, not a genre, you have so many genres to choose from. So we decided to divide them into themes people can take a bite out of.”
The Cinémathèque’s program certainly doesn’t shy away from superheroes – the ‘Gods And Monsters’ strand features films like ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘Iron Man’, and the exhibition’s crown jewel, a rare 35mm vault print of Richard Donner’s ‘Superman’ that almost never leaves the Warner Bros archives – but it doesn’t stop there.

The ‘Pulped Fiction’ strand features silent film adaptations of comic strips and serials made for television; ‘Rebels And Outcasts’ pays tribute to bloody-minded vigilantes (including a rare print of ‘Lone Wolf And Cub: Sword Of Vengeance’, accompanied by live subtitles); and ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ celebrates a diverse selection of films (including ‘American Splendor’, ‘Ghost World’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs The World’) that spotlight the hopes, dreams and frustrations of everyday life.
‘Under The Radar’ unearths hidden gems from around the globe, highlighted by cartoonist-turned-director Joann Sfar’s ‘Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life’, a subversive tribute to the French singer. 'Guilty Pleasures' considers cult classics and noble failures, including Slack-Smith's favourite film in the program, the fabulously flawed 'Flash Gordon'.

Finally, 'Writing Pictures' examines the lives of the writers and artists who have shaped the medium, including Italian sisters Angela and Luciana Guisssani, who created ruthless anti-hero Diabolik. “In the '60s,” Slack-Smith explains, “women in Italy weren't meant to work, especially in comics, which is still a male-dominated industry. For them to create this very amoral character... this doco points out how influential 'Diabolik' was in Italy at the time. The church were buying up copies of 'Diabolik' and burning them!

“So for me, this doco nails what comics can do, and what literature can do. Because comics are literature. I don't think we need to have that argument any more.”

GoMA's Australian Cinémathèque presents 'Drawn To Screen' until March 4. qag.qld.gov.au/cinematheque/current/drawn_to_screen