Caught young by a fascination with films and filmmaking, Brian McFarlane became an internationally recognised expert on British film as well as having taught in the English Department at Monash University for many years. His career as a film historian and critic is the subject of his newly published memoir, Real and Reel, which starts out in the Victorian Mallee, takes in his years as a secondary school teacher and an encounter with Merle Oberon, and describes his experiences documenting the British film industry and its leading figures. In this podcast he talks to Peter Clarke about his “lifetime addiction.”
Brian McFarlane is an Adjunct Professor at the Swinburne Institute for Social Research. His books include Words and Images: Australian Novels into Film, New Australian Cinema: Sources and Parallels in American and British Film, An Autobiography of British Cinema, The Oxford Companion to Australian Film (co-edited), The Encyclopedia of British Film and The British “B” Film (co-authored). He is a frequent reviewer for the Age, Australian Book Review, Metro, Sight and Sound and Inside Story and a regular reviewer on 3RRR’s Film Buff’s Forecast.
