Becoming Unmade

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia is unmaking films. In this chapter, I test this provocation through a close analysis of the treatment and maintenance of film-versions at the NFSA, namely, the selection and restoration of certain versions of iconic films over others. I consider that through this process the NFSA has reduced previous versions of these films to a point of near non-existence. Examples of this process include films like Gillian Armstrong’s 1982 Sydney musical Starstruck, for which the process of restoration involved cutting seven minutes from the film’s runtime - a decision defended by the director as streamlining for modern audiences. By comparison these lesser film-versions are difficult to access and exhibit, and slowly sidelined out of the canon. By testing this provocation, I demonstrate that the film-version is an overlooked avenue of analysis for film and media studies, that when explored can produce rich insights about history making and the maintenance of national identity. Further, I argue that this process of versioning has considerable implications for audience relationships to these films. An important consequence of unmaking these film-versions, is that a contemporary audience has a different experience of a given film-text to audiences of a previous iteration. Th chapter operates from a position of neutrality - my intention is not to argue that this unmaking is bad, but instead to contribute new language and technique for understanding the agile and changing nature of these films in archival contexts.

Keywords: Archives ; Film history ; Film preservation ; Film restoration ; Starstruck ; Unmade film