Dr Mark Nicholls
Head, Screen Studies
Qualifications
BA Hons (UniMelb), PhD (UniMelb)
Biography
Mark Nicholls' areas of teaching and research include: Freudian psychoanalysis, masculinity, Italian cinema, New Hollywood Cinema, 1950s Hollywood melodrama, Film and the Cold War.
Mark is the author of Scorsese's Men: Melancholia and the Mob (Pluto Press & Indiana University Press, 2004). He is also the author of recent articles on issues of melancholia, melodrama, performance, Italian migration, Hollywood in Italy in the Cold War and Australian politics that are published in journals such as The Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Film Quarterly, Journal of Film and Video, The Transdisciplinary Journal of Emergence (Italy) and Crikey.com. He is currently writing a book on the films of Jeremy Irons and a critical biography of Martin Scorsese.
Mark writes a weekly column, "Buff's Choice" in the Melbourne Age, "EG" section and is a regular film commentator on ABC radio.
Current research
Jeremy Irons and The Prince of Perversion
Monograph
Martin Scorsese: A Critical Biography
Monograph
Explaining America: Cold War Visual Culture and the Image of Globalization
Collaborative Research Project
Somewhere Between Three Rehearsals and the Performance
Creative work/film in pre production
Visconti Project #2 Uncle Vania
Creative work/film in post production.
Visconti Project #3 Pelleas and Melisande
Creative work/film in post production
Knowledge transfer
Community involvement
- 2007 "Buff's Choice", the Age, regular weekly column.
- 2007 Yarraville Festival, Short Film Competition Judge
- 2005- ARC International Assessor
- 2003 Regular Film Reviewer, The Arts Program, 774 ABC Melbourne
- 2003 Panel Member, The Quiz Show, ABC Radio National.
- 2002 Regular Arts Panel Member, "The Evening Program", 774 ABC Radio Victoria
- 2000-2003 Short Film Selection Panel, Melbourne International Film Festival
Guest and public Lectures
- 2007 "The Critics & Your Film", Melbourne University Filmmaking Summer School.
- 2006 "Taboo for Totem's Sake: Freud's Teen Picture", Teens, Teams and Dreams, Special Seminar, AHCCA, The University of Melbourne.
- "Shit Happens! (B)anal Spaces in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction", Double Dialogues: On Space, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
- "The Critics & Your Film", Melbourne University Filmmaking Summer School.
- 2004 "Madmen full of shame, melancholy and despair: Film and the Little Girl Thing", "Masculinities: Gender, Art & Popular Culture", Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne.
- "Dial M for Masculinity: Men and the Movies 1925-2005" Balnarring Probus Club Shorem, Victoria
- 2005 The Third Man, Student Lecture ACMI.
- "The Critics & Your Film", Melbourne University Filmmaking Summer School.
- 2004 "Visconti's il gattopardo: Melancholia and the Radical Sensibility", "Culture and the Unconscious II, University of East London.
- 2004 The Third Man, Student Lecture ACMI.
- "The Critics & Your Film", Melbourne University Filmmaking Summer School.
- 2003 "The melodrama of migration in Italian Australian cinema", School of Art History, Cinema, Classical Studies and Archaeology, University of Melbourne.
- 2003 "Hollywood in Rome (1953-1963)", Australian Centre for Italian Studies Conference, University of Western Australia, Perth.
- 2003 "From Queen Bess to Queen Bette: A Window into Hollywood Royalty", Day Seminar: Elisabeth I, School of History, University of Melbourne.
- 2003 The Age of Innocence, Secondary Teacher Day Seminar, ACMI.
- 2003 The Third Man, Student Lecture ACMI.
- 2003 Looking For Alibrandi, Secondary Teacher Day Seminar, ACMI.
- Pre-screening speaker, Intolerable Cruelty, Antithesis Fundraising event,
- Cinema Nova, Carlton.
- "The Critics & Your Film", Melbourne University Filmmaking Summer School.
- 2002 "Gidget Goes to Rome but Freud Doesn't: Representations of Rome in Hollywood films of the 50s and 60s." The Italians, Museum of Victoria.
- 2002 "Male Melancholia and the Mob: Cinema and the Art of Loss." Culture and Melancholy, University of Kent at Canterbury, 25-26 October.
- 2002 Looking For Alibrandi, Secondary Teacher Day Seminar, ACMI.
- 2002 "The Critics & Your Film", Melbourne University Filmmaking Summer School.
Teaching
- 107-077 Television and Australian Culture
- 107-078 Italian National Cinemas
- 107-087 Contemporary Australian Cinema
- 107-088 Love Stories: Film and Narrative Theory
- 107-267 The Cinema of Martin Scorsese
- 107-432 Melodrama, Class and the Cinema
- 107-463 Dream Screen: Film and Psychoanalysis
Full subject descriptions are available on the University of Melbourne Handbook.
Publications
Books
- Mark Nicholls, Male Melancholia and the Mob: The Films of Martin Scorsese, Pluto Press, & Indiana University Press, 2004
Book chapters
- 2005 "My Victims/My Melancholia: Raging Bull and Vincent Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful in Hayes. K. (ed), Martin Scourses's Raging Bull, Cambridge Film Handbooks, Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 116-134.
- 1997 "Frontline" Insight ' 98 Leonie Keaney (ed.) Insight Publications, pp.103-107
- 1997 "Crazy Days at Culver City: Reflections on Hollywood Histories and the Popular Documentary", Ormond Papers vol. 14, 1997, pp.175-182.
Journal articles
- 2006 "Visconti's Il gattopardo: Melancholia and the Radical Sensibility" The Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 23:97-110.
- 2005 "Freud and Gidget Go to Rome But Uncle Sam Doesn't: The Roman Fever Films 1953-1963", Studi d'italianistica nell'Africa australe: Italian Studies in Southern Africa. vol. 18, no 2, pp. 1-33.
- 2004 "Male Melancholia and Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence", Film Quarterly, Number 1, Fall 2004, pp.25-35.
- 2004 "Gen. Italia: Class, Sexuality and the Melodrama of Migration in Italian-Australian Cinema" in Transdisciplinary Journal of Emergence, http://knowledge.sda.uni-bocconi.it/emergence/ Issue 2, no. 2, Spring.
- 2003 "Brush up Your Shakespeare: Performance Anxieties in Shakespeare in Love, Journal of Film and Video, 54: 4 (USA).
- 1998 "Martin Scorsese's Kundun: A Melancholic Momentum" Metro no. 116, August 1998, pp. 11-14.
- 1997 "She Who Gets Slapped: Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady " Metro No.111, August, 1997, pp. 43-47.
Creative work
- 2006 "Special Features DVD Commentary", Gruppo di famiglia in un interno/Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti), Madman Entertainment.
- 2007 "Special Features DVD Commentary", Viridiana (Luis Bunuel) with Assoc. Professor Judith Keene, Madman Entertianment.
- 2005 Expert Interviewee, "The Language of Film and TV"(Film), Video Education Australasia, 2005.
- 2005 Visconti project #1: As You Like It Producer/Director, University of Melbourne.
- 1996 Trojan Women Spartan Men (James Panichi and Mark Nicholls), Producer/Director, The CUB Malthouse, South Melbourne.
- 1993 Single Spies (Alan Bennett), Producer/Director/Actor, Grant Street Theatre, Southbank.
- 1992 The Wild Duck, (Henrik Ibsen), Producer/ Director, Napier Street Theatre, South Melbourne.
- 1992 Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas), Producer/Director/Actor, The CUB Malthouse, South Melbourne.
- 1992 King Lear (William Shakespeare), Producer/Director/Actor, Northcote Amphitheatre, Fairfield Park.
- 1991 Early Days - Under the Old Hat (Pam Leversha) Assistant Director, Playbox Theatre Company The CUB Malthouse, South Melbourne.
- 1991 Private Lives (Noel Coward) Producer/Director/Actor, Guild Theatre, Melbourne University.
- 1991 Enrico IV (Luigi Pirandello) Producer/Director/Actor, The Chapter House, St. Paul's Cathedral.
- 1991 Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov) Producer/Director, Guild Theatre, Melbourne University.
- 1990 Hamlet the Dane (William Shakespeare) Producer/Director/Actor, The Chapter House, St. Paul's Cathedral.
- 1990 The Vortex (Noel Coward) Producer/Director, Guild Theatre, Melbourne University.
- 1989 Richard III (William Shakespeare) Producer/Director, Guild Theatre, Melbourne University.
Stage/screen scripts completed
2005
- Somewhere Between Three Rehearsals and the Performance
2004
- Outing My Mother
2002
- Suit Yourself
2001
- The Leopard (Revised)*
1996
- Suburban Myths Episode One: "Ethnic Dilemmas"*
- Trojan Women, Spartan Men*
- The Nemesis*
- The Leopard*
(* co-authored with James Panichi)
Media articles
- 2007 "Election 2007: five scenarios with a grain of salt", Crikey, 'Politics Etc", Wednesday, 6 June 2007: http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20070606-Election-2007-five-scenarios.html
- 2004 "The Third Man: Scene by Scene Analysis" Australian Screen Education #35(Winter) pp.97-103.
- 2004 "The Third Man: Background and Context" Australian Screen Education #34(Autumn), pp. 93-99.
- 2003 "'Its Harry I'm Planning to Marry': Oedipal desire in Carol Reed's The Third Man, in Australian Screen Education #33 (Summer) pp. 131-135.
- 2003 "Citizens, friends and Shattered Illusions in Carol Reed's The Third Man", in Australian Screen Education #32 (Spring), pp. 127-132.
- 2002 "'Are you going to do it like that, Darling': Performance Desire in Shakespeare in Love" in Australian Screen Education #29 (Winter), pp.158- 163.
- 1997 "Small Towns, Families and The Repression We Had To Have: Lasse Hallstrom's What's Eating Gilbert Grape ? ", Metro Education # 13 1997, pp. 3 - 6.
Interviews
- 2007 Interview, "Film and Psychoanalysis", Viewpoints, 3SER, 9, March 2007.
- 2006 Interview, "Visconti Film Festival", The Italian Program, SBS Radio (National), 22, May (in Italian)
- 2006 Interview, "Oscar Nominations", Morning Program, ABC Radio Perth, 2 March
- 2005 Interview, "The Musical", "The Deep End", ABC Radio National, June.
- 2004 Interview, "Day Time Soaps and Australian Culture", ABC Radio South West, 22 June.
- 2004 Interview, "Prisoner and Television Serials", ABC Radio Regional Victoria, 2 March.
- 2004 Interview "Case closed: crime TV beats reality", The Age, Saturday, October 2, 2004. p. 7.
- 2004 Interview, "Male liberation", A3 The Age, Tuesday, September, 28, 2004, p. 6.
- 2003 Interview, "Kids find Nemo", Triple J Morning Show, 8th September.
- 2002 Interview, "Using the hard sell, with a view to making a killing", The Age, Thursday, December 12, 2002, p. 15.