Using local urban locations (a neighbourhood cinema, a city bar and nightclub), Ruane explores the "multiplicity of diasporas" [16] prevalent in contemporary Australian society. Carl's battles with Mustafa (Nick Lathouris) and the villainous Laurie (Boris Brkic) are humorous, but these confrontations are grounded in the nightclub kitchen, swimming pool and Brunswick streets that they occur in. O'Regan observes that in New World (Settler) society films, relationships are de-nominalized via the "popular culture of entertainment and consumerism, like the workplace, neighbourhood, schooling, and intermarriage, is hybridized and incorporates diverse elements and ancestries into the dominant culture." [17]

The landscapes in Death in Brunswick are far more benign in contrast to Oscar and Lucinda: Carl's key problem is not to triumph over the harsh conditions, but to salvage a personal identity in contemporary post-industrial consumer-driven society. However, both films do explore different aspects of New World societies that O'Regan identifies: "these societies are predicated upon an immigrant's preparedness to take on new identities and an assumption that the existing native-born identities would attentuate themselves sufficiently to accommodate this new presence." [18]

Through their neurotic and conflicting protagonists, both films explore 'de-differentiating strategies' that emphasize "commonalities rather than differences, consensus rather than plurality, a singular abstract identity rather than multiple identities." [19] Public locations such as the church, nightclub, and pub (where Hopkins's expedition begins to fall apart) are vital for society to cohere at a "mytthic-membership" level, which is layered over more primal (hence divisive) sources of identity and values (landscape, ancestry, beliefs).

A postmodern marketable entertainment identity is overtly absent from both films, which do not conform purely to O'Regan's Settler schema: his "communal idealism associated with ethnicity and sectarianism." [20] Both films feature communal (family, church) and individualist (the protagonists) orientations, and both critically distance themselves from 'pure' multiculturalism and diaspora modes as O'Regan defines them.

By the late 1990s, "problematising nationhood" had expanded beyond O'Regan's four-fold schema. Whether they concern individuals or nation-states, the study of identity now requires a more chaotic and shifting model, to adequately decipher its depth. Whereas film theory usually 'rescues' film texts, it is perhaps time that geopolitical realities concerning nation-states 'rescues' film theory and cultural studies from their own subjective vicissitudes. Both Oscar and Lucinda and Death in Brunswick point toward such a need, by drawing upon several of Tom O'Regan's nationhood modes, yet also existing beyond his model.

Bibliography and Films Cited:

Death in Brunswick (1991). Dir. John Ruane. Perf. Sam Neill (Carl Fitzgerald), Zoe Carides (Sophie Papafogos), John Clarke (Dave), Yvonne Lawley (Mrs. Fitzgerald), Nick Lathouris (Mustafa).

Oscar and Lucinda (1997). Dir. Gillian Armstrong. Perf. Ralph Fiennes (Oscar Hopkins), Cate Blanchett (Lucinda Leplastrier), Ciaran Hinds (Reverend Dennis Hassett).

Gallagher, Winifred. The Power of Place: How Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

O'Regan, Tom. "Problematising Nationhood." Australian National Cinema. London: Routledge, 1996. 304-322.

Routt, William D. "The Fairest Child in the Motherland: Colonialism and Family in Films of the 1920s and 1930s." Albert Moran and Tom O'Regan (ed.). The Australian Screen. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books Australia, 1989. 28-52.

Schama, Simon. Landscapes and Memory. New York: Knopf, 1995.

Seligman, Martin. Learned Optimism. New York: Knopf, 1991.

Turner, Grame. "Art Directing History: The Period Film". Albert Moran and Tom O'Regan (ed.). The Australian Screen. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books Australia, 1989. 99-117.

Endnotes:

[1] Winifred Gallagher. The Power of Place: How Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. 12.

[2] William D. Routt. "The Fairest Child in the Motherland: Colonialism and Family in Films of the 1920s and 1930s." The Australian Cinema. Albert Moran and Tom O'Regan (ed.). The Australian Screen. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books Australia, 1989. 40-47.

[3] Tom O'Regan. O'Regan, Tom. "Problematising Nationhood." Australian National Cinema. London: Routledge, 1996. 325.

[4] William D. Routt. 39.

[5] Graeme Turner. "Art Directing History: The Period Film". Albert Moran and Tom O'Regan (ed.). The Australian Screen. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books Australia, 1989. 115.

[6] Graeme Turner. Ibid. 103.

[7] Graeme Turner. Ibid. 113.

[8] Graeme Turner. Ibid. 115.

[9] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 305.

[10] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 308.

[11] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 307.

[12] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 320.

[13] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 306.

[14] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 317.

[15] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 324.

[16] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 314.

[17] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 323.

[18] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 318.

[19] Tom O'Regan. Ibid. 330.