US film legend visits RMIT

Robert Rosen was in town for the 2010 Melbourne International Film Festival to present a series of six inspiring, challenging and richly informative lectures devoted to “narrative”.

Each of his lectures held at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) started from a premise that beneath the story lines and genre conventions, we should be aware of the deep layers of meaning driven by universal principles of the human condition.

That humans are hard-wired to find narrative and it is everywhere ... in our personal stories and how we make sense of the world in which we live, a fact not lost on the corporate branding gurus.

Narratives, of course, can be used very effectively by filmmakers and have reached their apotheosis on screen in the form of genre – westerns, horror, romantic comedies and the like.

According to Mr Rosen: “There are two types of pleasures related to narrative and story. One is the pleasure of the familiar – it’s like returning to the heart or the home but, at the same time, there is that ‘pulling the rug out from under you feet’ effect – the subversion of expectation. And the most interesting movies are an interplay of the two.”

He delighted in showing film clips illuminating his points to an audience of about 100 every day, many returning to participate in the entire series.

Mr Rosen knows one or two things about the subject. Until recently he was Dean of the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and TV where he taught emerging directors to invent the future based on understanding cinema from the past.

“It’s about looking back at the diversity of ways that directors over time have solved storytelling problems. You break with formulas and you get the courage to find your own voice.”

He is a passionate advocate of film preservation and has spoken on film criticism, media history and curatorship in more than 20 nations. He was Founding Director of the American Film Institute's National Centre for Film and Video Preservation, a member of the National Film

Preservation Board of the Library of Congress and, with Martin Scorsese, organiser of the Film Foundation on which he currently serves as the founding Chair of the Archivists Council.

Mr Rosen was the film critic for KCRW National Public Radio for a decade and is an active member of the LA Film Critics Association. He received the John Huston Award for Artists’ Rights from the DGA and currently serves as Director of the Narrative Literacy Lab.

In the words of participants: “It was great to have the opportunity to hear someone of such high calibre who was so generous with his knowledge” and "After Robert's two stimulating lectures I bought myself yet another notebook and did a bit of writing, and in the light of what he spoke about so much more of my story unfolded. I love what he's distilled and articulated. So again, thank you".

Mr Rosen also took time to spend a day at RMIT starting with an In Conversation with Adjunct Professor Sue Maslin, introduced by Leo Berkeley, Discipline Head, Media, Journalism and Music Industries, School of Media and Communication.

He visited the AFI Research and Information Library, which is hosted by RMIT, before meeting a number of staff for lunch.

The “In search of stories worth telling” lecture series was a joint initiative of Screen Australia, MIFF 37 South and the RMIT School of Media and Communication.

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