" Founded by rejects from British society, Australia has a holiday devoted to a military fiasco, a hero hanged after bungling a bank robbery, an alternative anthem about a thief who commits suicide, and a film industry that keeps making self-critical movies that nobody goes to see" Who we are
The divisive nature of Australia's history helps explain why Australia has consistently produced great writers, great actors, and great directors but is nothing but a production line of flops that go straight to video. Basically, vested interests in Australia, like vested interests all around the world, have tried to use film to control hearts and minds. Unfortunately, because historical issues concerning convicts, prostitutes, Aborigines, unionism, Labour disputes, and migration are hotly contested, no movie anchored in such topics of Australian history will inspire unity. Any attempt to manipulate history for political purposes inevitably provokes a hostile response from some aspects of the population, which is not conducive to social manipulation. While disunity is harmful from commercial and propaganda perspectives, it is beneficial from an artistic perspective and can produce a lot of talent as a consequence.
The capacity of Australian history to divide was an early feature of Australian film industry. In 1906, Australia produced The Story of the Kelly Gang, the world's first feature-length film. The film was extraordinary popular; running for five weeks to full houses. It only cost 1,000 pounds to make but returned 26,000 pounds. Over the next five years Australia produced more successful films such as the Eureka Stockade, The Assigned Servant, The Squatters Daughter, Attack on the Gold Escort, Sentenced for Life and The Mark of the Lash.
Despite being very popular, the bushranging movies subverted British-based patriotism. In addition, they subverted the psychological desire of many Australians to see authority as legitimate and criminals as illegitimate. Consequently, in 1912 the entire genre of bushranging films was banned. With its own government saying the Australian story had no value, the Australian industry was overrun by Hollywood. Rather than grow up watching bushrangers fight corrupt troopers, Australian kids grew up watching cowboys shoot Indians. (Perhaps American movies that celebrated the wild west were more acceptable to Australian governments because they were not so close to home.)
Although the contentious nature of Australian history makes it unsuited to social manipulation, it does make it very suited to art house movies where ambiguity and moral confusion are highly prized. Occasionally, directors and writers have chosen to take advantage of this contention to produce movies that are creative, and thought provoking.
In 1981, Peter Weir’s Gallipoli showed how it should be done. Gallipoli broached a number of polarising issues in a way that allowed it to receive almost universal applause. It managed to please both the anti-war activists, as well as the old veterans with harsh memories of their involvement in World War I, II, Korea and Vietnam. Likewise, it appealed to the larrikin streak that has always questioned Australia's loyalty to England without overtly offending the Australians who still felt an emotional connection with the "motherland." It even managed to please the Turks, whose country was invaded, without offending Australians with the notion that the Diggers should feel guilty for what they did.
Weir’s movie had a profound influence upon the Australian identity. Before its release, Australia’s Anzac tradition seemed to be dying. Ex-soldiers were getting older and the younger generation were very vocal with their anti-war ideology. After its release, Anzac Day was repositioned as one of the most important days on the Australian calendar. In keeping with the melancholic themes of the movie, it has not become a celebration of war, but a remembrance of wars' cost. Of course, Anzac Day had always been about that, but Weir’s movie was able to communicate its essence to an anti-war audience so that they could understand and let go of their anger.
Just as Australian history has proved divisive, so has the Australian environment. This is probably because it is both harsh and beautiful. On one hand, the outback is a wasteland. Not much grows and there are signs of death all around. The bones of dead animals litter the landscape and there is a feeling of utter isolation. For some Australians, the landscape's harshness acts a metaphor of all that is wrong with Australian culture. Poet A.D Hope saw it as a "A woman beyond her change of life, a breast still tender but within the womb is dry". Painters such as Albert Tucker and Russel Drysdale used the outback to represent the failure of white civilisation and moral decay. Novelist Patrick White used the outback to symbolise the inevitable doom of Australian aspiration. Like these artists, Australian film makers also saw the emotional power of the landscape as the perfect setting for plots that took a troubling take on life.
One of the earliest of such movies was Wake in Fright (1971), which told the story of a school teacher that endures a personal hell after finding himself stranded in a town that exists largely beyond the realms of polite civilisation. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) used an intimidating rock as a setting for a gradual breakdown of polite norms. In Mad Max (1979), George Miller used the outback to symbolise a wasteland that followed the breakdown of civilisation into a series of hunter gatherer tribes.
Although a negative environmental view governs most Australian artists, there have been a few who have the seen the environment as a place of beauty that could in turn represent a wider appreciation for Australia. Poet Dorothea Mackellar expressed a heartfelt love for the "sunburnt country" and "rugged mountain ranges". Painter Pro Hart blended positive imagery of the outback with positive imagery of Australian people. Finally, in Crocodile Dundee (1986), Paul Hogan used positive sentiment towards the environment as symbolic of the strengths in the Australian people.
In 1988, with Crocodile Dundee bringing the Australian film industry huge respect and status for a particular stereotype, Paul Keating, treasurer of the ruling Labor government, decided to act. Although Keating was a man of the arts, he was not of the Paul Hogan persuasion. Consequently, he scrapped the unbiased system of tax concessions that had proved successful and announced it would be replaced with funding for film distributors, sales agents, and broadcasters. The funding system allowed Keating's party to have more control over the type of movies being made, distributed, promoted and shown. It also marked the end of an independent film industry. Even if a movie was made outside of government funding, the ability to distribute it was lessened.
In 1994, the release of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert showed a concerted effort to redefine Australian stereotypes in a way that was consistent with Keating’s image of Australia. Priscilla was a return to earlier genres that had sought to position the outback as a wasteland of the human mind. It promoted the stereotype that the Australian outback was home to lewd, racist and uncultured homophobes that were nothing like the good natured larrikins portrayed in Crocodile Dundee. The social agenda was obvious in the words of Paul Byrnes, a reviewer from the Sydney Morning Herald,
"The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert went further than any of these in attacking the Crocodile Dundee mythology of the essentially harmless heterosexual outback male. These same types of men, usually depicted in bars in Priscilla, can be suspicious, violent, vulgar and extremely intolerant, especially when confronted with alternative definitions of masculinity."
Irrespective of whether the stereotypes were true or not, they were mean-spirited and inspired very little community spirit. Furthermore, in the aim of portraying the outback as a racist backwater, Priscilla director Tim Elliot created and promoted racist stereotypes. For example, Elliot showed a sex-crazed Asian woman popping ping pong balls out of her vagina in a public sex show. The choice of an Asian woman to play the role was most deliberately designed for the racial power that could be infused. Although Elliot wanted the outback men to carry the stigma of the racism associated with the fictional scene he created, the scene was his own creation and therefore said more about his own views on Asian women.
In 1996, Keating lost power; however, the bureaucracy that he had created in his own image continued to dominate film production in Australia. Movies progressively became more mean-spirited, more politically homogenous and continued to use the outback as a setting for failings of the Australian character.
In 2002, the industry publicly nailed its political colours to the mast when it released and promoted Rabbit-proof Fence - a political movie that lacked all the nuances seen in quality art house movies like Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli. Rabbit-proof Fence took a politically controversial topic and made it very clear about what was the director thought was right, what was wrong, and how audiences were expected to react.
After Rabbit-proof Fence won the Australian Film Institute award for best picture, Noyce used his acceptance speech to criticise John Howard, the leader of the Liberal Party whom Paul Keating loathed with a passion. He also said the Australian people had " lost their humanity."
After the Australian industry collapsed, directors, writers, actors and producers blamed others for their failure. Director George Miller simply came out and said,
"We really don't have significant stories to tell, perhaps apart from the indigenous story...Australia at its heart is so racist that I don't think we can stomach it."
Such comments further eroded the community spirit that the Australian film industry needed to attract Australians to cinemas.
In many ways, the rejection of the Australian film industry by Australian audiences was a sign of strength in the Australian character. Because most of the targets of the bigotry were Asians or outback residents, it would have been quite easy for audiences to join in and feel a sense of superiority, as the movie makers obviously felt. Furthermore, with a whole propaganda machine saying that the movies were great, it would have been easy for audiences to simply stop thinking and believe the stereotypes depicted in the movies. However, by voting with their feet and looking elsewhere, audiences showed that while governments can get control of the strings, it is also easy for Australians audiences to just cut those strings.
In 2011, the movie Red Dog, based upon the true story of a dog in a desert mining community, demonstrated that Australian audiences would much prefer to see a positive depiction of the past, and their compatriots, than a negative one. Red Dog told the story of a dog that helped bring a community of lost souls together and in a sense, represented everything that a leader should be. After he was poisoned, his story told in bar-room yarns, a statue was erected in his honour, books were written about his life, and finally the movie was made. In some ways, the fact that a dog cold be more highly celebrated than a politician revealed something about the failings of politicians; however, it also revealed something about the egalitarian character of Australia where even a different species could be celebrated above that of a politician.
Worthwhile Australian movies
Walkabout
In order to showcase the limits of civilisation, Walkabout contrasts modern civilisation with the harsh Australian landscapes. A fourteen year old girl and her little brother lost in Australia's outback after their father attempts to murder them before committing suicide. They are saved from certain death when they encounter a teenage aboriginal boy on his walkabout.
Slowly the girl and her brother acclimatise to a more innocent lifestyle, and the three develop a bond. Throughout the movie, related scenes in civilization and the outback are contrasted. Despite all three taking something from the experience, it is the young boy who learns the most. He learns to communicate with their saviour, while the older two never truly attempt to learn about each other and suffer as a consequence.
Walkabout was the movie that put Australian cinema on the road to recovery. Very unique and thought provoking, it laid the groundwork for a series of art house movies that are still celebrated today as pioneering works of Australian culture.
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Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Picnic at Hanging Rock contrasted ordered English society with the un-ordered Australian bush. It portrayed three school girls that went missing in mysterious circumstances. In a very unique way, director Peter Weir never resolved the mystery and so left the audience hanging in a state of bemusement.
Gallipoli (1981)
The
1981 movie, Gallipoli, explains why Australians have chosen to remember
the war with the Ode, and also why it is a defeat, rather than a victory, that
is celebrated on Australia’s military day.
The
movie is based around the mateship between Archie (Mark Lee) and Frank
(Mel Gibson.) The first third of the movie shows how the two characters meet,
and are drawn into the war. Archie's path stems from naivety. Frank originally has no intention
to enlist. He just can't understand Australia's involvement. Besides which, his
father is an Irishman who is against supporting the English. However, after he
hears a few pretty girls express their affection for the brave soldiers, he thinks
it may not be such a bad idea.
The second
third of the movie deals with the larrikinism of the Australians training in Egypt.
They play Aussie Rules at the base of the pyramids, and use some dodgy moves to
take out the damaging opponents. They come across from pompous British officers,
and duly take the piss out of them. They make trouble for their commanding officers
when they all pretend to play dead on the battlefield.
Frank and Archie
are then reunited. They express their mateship to a point of borderline homosexuality.
They race to the pyramids, climb to the top, carve their names into their stone
and then shake hands as the sun sets. Frank then transfers into Archie's unit
so that they can be together.
The final
third deals with the futility of the Gallipoli campaign. As a distraction to help
British forces landing, the Australian soldiers are to attack Turkish positions
across a stretch of land known as the Nek. Two waves of soldiers are mowed
down before they can get more than a few meters from the trench. In spite of the
losses, the soldiers are ordered to keep attacking.
In desperation,
Frank goes over this officer's head, and gets the nod from the general to call
off the attack. He sprints back to the front to save his mate’s life. Back at
the front, Archy pins a letter, bayonet and his athletics medal to the trench
wall knowing his death is but seconds away. For all Frank’s efforts, he fails
to arrive in time. Archie leaps from the trench and sprints towards the Turks
without his gun. The films ends with a freeze frame of Archy's body being pieced
by bullets.
By
giving the viewer a feel-good experience only to then take it back with a senseless
death, the value of the Digger's traits are made that much more stark as is the
anguish of war. It depicts Gallipoli as a story of mateship, courage and bravery
of those who fell, and those who felt pain by their fall.
Man from Snowy River (1992)
Banjo Patterson's Man from Snowy River is Australia's most famous poem and a universally admired feel-good story. It is about an outsider whose ability to ride is questioned and mocked, but a lone man shows faith, welcomes the outsider into the group and that faith is eventually repaid with interest.
The popularity of the poem can be attributed to its themes about an underdog seeking acceptance, and showing courage and ability to gain that acceptance. It resonates with people's emotions because in some shape or form, everyone has to deal with the same challenges in their life and they hope to achieve similar results.
Mad Max series
Australia's colonial experience was very different to that of America. In Australia, the restriction of firearms in a convict society combined with the harsh Australian environment to ensure that Australian farming communities were low density and not in a position to war with the natives. America, on the other hand, was flooded with guns and was able to use those guns to forcibly take fertile land that could sustain high-density farming communities.
The different history and environment in turn shaped the story telling genres of the two cultures. America developed a story telling genre based around Cowboys fighting Indians. Because Australia had no such history of conflict, it never created a story telling genre based around Aborigines fighting Stockmen. With no history of noble colonists fighting barbaric natives to draw from, George Miller imagined a tribal conflict in the future in which he could tell the classic western style story of a lone warrior protecting the civilised against marauding savages.
In Mad Max 1, society is breaking down due to restrictions in fuel. Max is a police officer trying to maintain some sense of law and order in outback Australia. A bikie gang has come to town; raping, pillaging and murdering. Included in the victims is Max's best mate, wife and child. In revenge, Max picks off the gang one by one.
Crocodile Dundee I and II (1986)
Crocodile
Dundee is generally referred to as a 'fish out of water' tale. Although this may
be an apt description for the sequels, the story is more a Seinfield style
of holding a mirror of pragmatism at Americans and Australians alike. It plays
on stereotypes of Australians and makes fun of them, while at the same time, reaffirming
them. It is both real, and a joke, at the same time.
Like
Gallipoli, Crocodile Dundee had a huge influence on Australia. World wide, it
generated immense good will for Australia which in turn generated a dramatic rise in
tourism - particularly from the United States. It also laid the groundwork for
another Crocodile man, Steve Irwin, to create larger than life wildlife
documentaries that likewise made fun of stereotypes while simultaneously affirming
them.
Domestically, Crocodile Dundee initially
created a wave good will that was another shot in the arm to the Australian movie
industry. A series of quirky comedies were subsequently released that rode on
the back of the growing sense of national pride.
Longer-term,
however, Crocodile Dundee became a source of division. Australia's inner-city
intelligentsia, who don't share the movie's sense of humour, became concerned
that the movie portrayed an unrealistic image of Australians. They argued that
most Australians don't have blond hair, don't wrestle crocodiles, don't live in
the outback and don't say 'g'day'. For Geoffrey Barker of the Melbourne Herald, the movie reinforced international perceptions that "Australians are gauche, provincial and philistine". Another concerned citizen, Veronica Brady, said the film was about "colonial servility, violence and a profound confusion of values". Presumably, the concerned citizens thought that a "true" Australian lives in an inner-city terrace,
drinks soy-milk, complains about Crocodile stereotypes and is gay. In
some regards, their complaints were as silly as an Englishman getting upset about
James Bond movies on the grounds that most Poms do not save the world, are not
gentlemen, and don't seduce lots of women.
Strictly Ballroom
Scott is a champion ballroom dancer who wants to dance "his own steps." Fran is a beginner dancer who convinces Scott that he should dance his own steps...with her. Complicating matters are Scott's domineering mother, a former dancer herself, who wants her son to win the Australian Pan Pacific Championship (the same contest she lost years ago), and a conniving dance committee that is determined that "there are no new steps!"
Although the plot is relatively generic, the true originality of Strictly Ballroom comes from Baz Luhrmann's directing. As Australia is an immigrant country, a great deal of garishness flows from the Frankenstein blend of styles that, although refined in their home country, look out of place in Australia. In the peripheral characters, Luhrmann takes that garishness and exaggerates it while leaving the main characters relatively normal. As a consequence, unexaggerated cultural expressions in the main characters look refined in comparison to the exaggerated peripheral characters.
As well as showing refinement through comparison to garishness, Luhrmann also sees beauty in garishness itself. A hills hoist in front of an illuminated coca cola sign is not typically a scene imagined in a mills and boon novel. In Strictly Ballroom; however, it is a setting for one of the movie's most romantic scenes.
Strictly Ballroom was an extremely creative and pioneering movie. Unlike some of the Australian movies that followed it, its creativity was not aimless and merely for the sake of it. Like dance steps, Lurhmann showed that there is room for improvisation, but there is still a beat to be followed, a synergy to be maintained and one step that needs to follow another.
Two Hands (1999)
Two
Hands could be categorised as a love story,
a black comedy, an action thriller, a super-natural, an anti-crime flick or art
house thinking movie. It is all of these but none of these. The movie
is based in Sydney's Kings Cross and begins with a deceased climbing from
the depths of hell to save his little brother from following in his footsteps.
He stops to explain the principle of ying-yang: that inside every good
person, there is a little bit of bad, and inside every bad person, there is a
little bit of good; thus setting the tone for a movie in which there are no bad
guys or good guys, rather there are only people whose little slip-ups have dire
consequences. Every action has a reaction and each peripheral story ricochets
against another to culminate in the climax of a central story.
Jimmy
(Heath Ledger) is befriended by area gangster Pando (Bryan Brown). Despite being
a gangster, Pando isn't portrayed as a bad character. He is a family man, has
no prejudices and is quite likeable. Pando gives Jimmy $10,000 to deliver but
Jimmy loses it to two young street kids. Knowing the consequences of the loss, he
is left with no alternative but to rob a bank to repay the loot. He gets some
help from friends with experience in robberies, who like Pando, have a family.
Eventually he repays the money to Pando who is then gunned down by one of the
street kids whose mate was killed by Pando driving too fast. The street kids are also the ones who stole the money initially.
Moulin Rouge
Set in a Paris brothel, inspired by Italian Operas, influenced by Bollywood, and integrating songs from America and England, one hand there doesn't seem much uniquely Australian about Moulin Rouge. On the other hand, with 4 out of 10 Australians having at least one migrant parent, Australia has somewhat of a bohemian culture that integrates the diverse cultures of the world into something new. It is an eye for integration that gives some Australians the ability to blend diverse cultures. It is the lack of a strong native culture that gives cultural creatives the freedom to do so.
Red Dog
The historical narrative has not been kind to the prime ministers of the 1930s, but it was kind to a horse named Phar Lap. Likewise, the historical narrative was not kind to prime ministers of the 1980s, but it was kind to a dog.
