Author(s): Brian McFarlane

Biographies

Real and Reel is a light-hearted, ironic account of a lifetime's addiction. It is one person's story, but it may strike familiar sparks among many others. Though there have been plenty of other interests to keep life lively, nothing else has exerted such a long-standing grip on the author's imagination as film. From a little before ten years of age, he became addicted to stories told on the screen and the mere fact that he had difficulty in getting to see the films he wanted - or any for that matter - only made them seem more alluring. But it wasn't just seeing the films that mattered; he also wanted, and quite soon needed, to be writing about them and these obsessions have been part of his life for the next sixty-odd years. Brian McFarlane has had overlapping careers as secondary-school teacher, academic and writer. He is now Adjunct Associate Professor attached to the English Department of Monash University where he taught for many years, and was Visiting Professor (Film) at the University of Hull, UK. His books include Words and Images: Australian Novels into Film, New Australian Cinema: Sources and Parallels in American and British Film, An Autobiography of British Cinema, The Oxford Companion to Australian Film (co-edited), The Encyclopedia of British Film,The British 'B' Film (co-authored), and he is a frequent reviewer for The Age, The Australian Book Review, Metro and Sight and Sound. He lives in Melbourne with Geraldine, his wife of fifty years, has three children and six grandchildren.