Animating origins: the 1920s Australian oil film. Issue 3 (2nd September 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Arrowsmith-Todd, Ruby
• Is Part Of: Studies in documentary film. Volume 16:Issue 3(2022)
• Page Start: 232
• Page End: 244
• Publication Date: 2022-09-02
• Subjects: Animation -- Oil -- Utilitarian filmmaking -- Sponsored cinema -- Shell -- Kinetics; Documentary films -- Periodicals; Motion pictures -- Periodicals; Films documentaires -- Périodiques; Films documentaires -- Production et réalisation -- Périodiques; Cinéma -- Périodiques; Documentary films; Motion pictures; Periodicals; 070.18
• DOI: 10.1080/17503280.2022.2138962
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1750-3280

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In the early twentieth century, oil companies transitioned from merchants of light to merchants of movement. A discreet network of pipelines began to crisscross the Australian landscape. By the 1950s, the presence of petroleum was visible everywhere, circulating across a vast cultural infrastructure of sponsored cinema. Oil films extolled fertilisers which turned a wasteland into pasture, fitness programs to train a 'nation of weaklings' into a wartime army reserve and the promise of ever-more refined fuels to supercharge a motile world. Companies enlisted cinema to excite emotions and ready the mind to accept prompts for future action. In this article, I explore the emergence of the 1920s Australian animated oil film to trace a new structure of feeling attuned to energetic increase, growth and ease.