Baz Luhrmann’s Australia isn’t a history of the penal colony turned commonwealth, but Luhrman’s absurd, cliché-ridden filmmaking ought to be a jailable offense. - Armond White, New York Press
Australia was meant to be the shot in the arm for the Australian movie and tourism industries, much like Paul Hogan'sCrocodile Dundee had been two decades earlier. After more than a decade of film-making failure, the government decided that only pathway to success would be to increase funding. Consequently, almost $90 million was invested in one director, Baz Lurhmann. This was supported by a further $40 million from Tourism Australia in cross promotions aiming to capitalise on Australia's expected success. Unfortunately, the success was not forthcoming as it became arguably the most criticised movie in Australian history.
Lurhmann's failure can be attributed to two main problems. Firstly, like many modern Australian chefs, he tried to blend things that just didn’t match. In movies like Strictly Ballroom, Lurhmann had effectively integrated a Hills Hoist, coca cola sign, flamenco dancing and ballroom dancing to create romantic scenes. In Moulin Rouge, he integrated the music of Sting with Argentine tango to create emotionally resonating scenes. While these blending worked well, there are some things that just can’t be paired. The Australian outback and camp was one such pairing that just didn't work. Trying to pair the two was like trying to pair beef with chocolate sauce.
Lurhmann's second problem was trying to use the Stolen Generations as a spice of injustice, much like slavery was to Gone with the Wind and socio-economic prejudice was to Titanic. Unfortunately, the Stolen Generations could not serve the same role because unlike slavery or socio-economic prejudice, there is still controversy as to what actually happened. The confusion about what actually happened was particularly apparent in some of Lurhmann's ignorant comments made during the film's promotion. When selling the film to the American market, Lurhmann said,
"The President-elect of the United States is 47. If he was living in Australia, it is absolutely credible that the government, because he had one white parent and one black parent, could have taken him forcibly from his family. They would have put him in an institution, probably lied to him that his parents were dead, changed his name and reprogrammed him to be European, so he could have some sort of function doing something of service in white society. That would possibly have been Obama's journey."
By trying to sound like he had a social conscience, Lurhmann ended up sounding like a fool. Firstly, Obama was raised in a white family and ended up as part of mainstream life. In fact, he was so engrained in mainstream life that he became the US president and served white America in the process. Lurhmann obviously didn't bother to learn anything about Obama's background when arguing he would have had a different life in Australia. Secondly, proponents of the Stolen Generations campaign have only suggested that children were removed from single Aboriginal mothers. There has never even been a suggestion that children were removed from white mothers, or mixed-race families living together. Furthermore, whether the removal was done to serve white society has also been debated.
The Stolen Generation's story was further confused by lead actor Hugh Jackman, who had a different take to Lurhmann. For Jackman, it wasn’t about serving white society, it was about preserving racial purity and the supremacy of the white race. When talking to an American audience, Jackman said:
"The stolen generation was a policy that was born out of eugenics. Eugenics in Europe, as we saw with Nazi Germany, was sort of popular at the time. This idea that if you mixed races or mixed breeds you lessened the blood or something and that you had an inferior human being, right?
So many well-intentioned people thought this was a good idea and in Australia if you had an Aboriginal parent and a white parent or a European parent, the government would take you away from your family, they would tell you your family had died or been killed in an accident, they would put you in an institution. "
If the Stolen Generations were indeed motivated by eugenics, then the whites who were removing the children wanted to weaken their own race by infusing Aboriginal genetics into mainstream Australian life. Meanwhile, they wanted to keep the Aboriginal race strong by keeping it pure. So in effect, they were doing the opposite to Nazi Germany. Even an actor should have been able to comprehend the absurdity of what Jackman was saying.
Both Lurhmann's and Jackman's comments showed why people in the film industry are best consulted for advice about putting on make-up, and best ignored when seeking informed opinions about the difficult issues of the day. Furthermore, the reaction to their comments showed the dangers of directors getting involved in a politically divisive concept, and taking a side. Firstly, it alienates up to 50% of the potential audience. Secondly, it creates an army of critics that want the director to fail. Thirdly, the apathetic people who might have gone to see the movie if it were sweeped up in a wave of community good will instead find something else to do.
Lurhmann took a lot of government money, took on a lot of responsibility, and let a lot of people down. For Lurhmann, Aborigines were just an issue to be exploited for his own commercial gain or his own vainity. His lack of familiarity with the truth of both Australia's history and that of Obama showed that he was more interested in manipulating the story in a way that would help him sell a movie instead of telling a story for how it was. While that might be ok if the movie was clearly labelled a work of fiction, it was sold as a pseudo-documentary. All the criticism he got was well deserved. Unfortunately, Australians as a whole suffered from his failure.
Criticisms
Frank Devine - The Australian
"Australia has been hailed as a saviour of our soi-disant movie industry. So it could be, irrespective of its box office earnings, if it leads to recognition that we don't have a film industry, despite expenditure over 20 years of $1.5billion in subsidies and perhaps another half billion in tax concessions.
What we've ended up with, instead, is a government arts program.
Australia's official movie agency has backed 1049 projects. Only seven became movies that attracted enough ticket-buyers to turn a profit. In short, Screen Australia (its new name) has picked 1042 losers, but still hasn't gone broke. However, no movie company can expect to flourish here if shackled by the not-sufficiently-Australian standards that recently saw George Miller and Warner Bros abandon filming in Australia of the super-hero flick Justice League Mortal, after being refused film production tax concessions, which Australia got, reportedly after surrendering to government pressure to tack on a Stolen Generations theme." 1)
David Dale - The Tribal Mind
"Reader Mervyn Allbright thinks Oz does not deserve to succeed: "Why do we think we have to make Hollywood-style 'block-busters' full of inaccuracies, populist tripe, historical lies, foolishly one-dimensional characters, and cringing and condescending portrayals of indigenous people? It just makes Australia look like a nation of dunces."
That's where this column comes in, because our weekly subject matter is national identity. Since the film seems to be aimed at eight year olds, it should at least be informative. But we wouldn't want them to grow up with a deluded view of the nation's history and iconography. These questions occurred to me as I watched:
1. Was there ever a beer called Kangaroo Bitter or a rum called Poor Fella?
2. Did drovers and cattle barons habitually wear revolvers in holsters on their hips?
3. Would an Aboriginal kid in 1940 have said "That strange woman, she fire-um that Fletcher" or is that more like a line spoken by an Indian in a Hollywood western from the 1950s? (And if an Aboriginal dialect did involve the addition of "um" to verbs, should it not have been "sack-um" rather than "fire-um"?)
4. Would a man working as an accountant in the outback in 1940 know the song Over The Rainbow, when The Wizard of Oz only opened in America in September, 1939? Would he have explained his ability to play it by declaring "I've got the latest 100 songs of the hit parade here".
5. Were half-caste children exiled to a place called Mission Island off Darwin, and was Mission Island the first place to come under Japanese attack in 1942? - " 2)
Andew Bolt - Herald Sun
" Some questions for this serial fantasist. Mr Luhrmann:
1. Please name just 10 children stolen from their families just because they were black.
2. Please name a single child stolen from his white mother just because he was black.
3. Please explain your racist assumption that it would be terrible to raise a child of a single white mother as “European”, and please define what you actually mean by that phrase.
4. Please explain how Obama himself was not raised as “European”, given he was brought up by his white mother and white grandparents. Please explain why Obama is a lesser person for that upbringing.
5. Please explain why you continue to assert as facts things which are absurd, untrue and unhelpful. 3)
Peter Costello - Sydney Morning Herald
" It also wants to tell the story of the stolen generations. It is out to make a statement - not one that will interfere with the box office receipts, but increase them - and show it is more than just a romance. The filmmaker wants to show a conscience, and make a healthy return. Everyone wins.
It is OK to invent things in movie fiction. But this movie wants to look historical. It ends by telling us that the policy of assimilation ended in 1973. (Nobody ever explained what that policy was.) It tells us the Government apologised to the stolen generations in 2008 (which solves the indigenous problem)." (4)
Foreign reviews
All in all, Australia is so damnably eager to please that it feels like being pinned down by a giant overfriendly dingo and having your face licked for about three hours: theoretically endearing but, honestly, kind of gross. - Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail
If you check your brain at the door, you’ll enjoy much of this roistering, resolutely old-school jumble of clichés...The story itself may pose a problem for some viewers averse to comic-book mystical deifications of Outback Aboriginal culture, or others who just might find the whole thing too derivative and simplistic a pastiche.. - David Noh, Film Journal International
Terrible. Cartoonish turkey with no script. Australia should rescind Baz’s citizenship. Smart move, Russell Crowe, backing out of this. - Victoria Alexander, FilmsInReview.com
Australia is one of the most boring movies ever made, and one of the corniest...I’ve been to Australia the country twice, but I never saw anything as insipid and monotonous there as Australia the movie. - Rex Reed, The New York Observer
