Carving out an Australian sensory cinema

One of the fascinating developments in Australian cinema since the mid-2000s has been the emphasis on tactility, materialism and haptic perception in feature films such as Somersault (2004), Samson and Delilah (2009), Hail (2011), Snowtown (2011) and Fell (2014). This chapter explores the emergence and aesthetics of this sensory cinema through an innovative interdisciplinary approach, combining the import of ‘new extremism’ and ‘cinema of sensation’ from European film theory and an analogy with the revival of ‘direct carving’ in modernist sculpture. These conceptual frameworks focus analysis on texture, sensation and the crafts of filmmaking, and provide insight into how and why Australian filmmakers are carving out a sensory cinema within national cinema and the international marketplace.