‘Waiting for harry’, filmed in 1980, is about the funeral of Harry’s nephew. The film depicts a traditional aboriginal wedding Prepared by Frank, complete with tension, stress, and togetherness. I will argue that this ethnographic film encompasses the feeling of unity and involvement, pulling the audience into the film through various cinematic techniques. The film overall made me feel engaged and interested in the lives of the tribe members, and the ceremony that they perform for the deceased. The use of narration and subtitles further the sense of inclusion, an idea which was made important by Frank when he stated, “This film is for everyone”. This quote sets the tone of the film and is continuously represented throughout, through interactions between the Anbarra people, the anthropologist, the Northern Australian’s, and the audience.
The use of narration and translation plays a large role in the inclusiveness of the production for both Aboriginal people and English speakers. The title sequence and credits have been narrated by the anthropologist into the aboriginal language. This is critical because Frank often discusses the film production with the Anbarra and Northern Australian aborigines, encouraging everyone to view it upon its release. There is occasionally English narration throughout the film, explaining the events and progression of the funeral and Harry’s whereabouts. English subtitles are also provided during important aboriginal dialog, assisting the
Images can have a powerful effect on the way a person perceives a story. It can be the line that connects two dots together and adds a visual emotion to just a plain text. Matt Ottley’s multimodal text, Requiem for a Beast, uses illustrations, music, text and changes in point of view to highlight the major themes that develop throughout the text. Themes such as reconciliation and the Stolen Generation are explored and the hardships that the Aboriginal people endured are present as well. The Stolen Generation is interpreted as a time when Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their homes and then taken under custody of the Australian Government.
Australian people and culture are often stereotyped in the media in different forms, one of them being film. The two films being examined, ‘Red dog’ (2011) and the ‘Sapphires’ (2012), are an example of the Australian identity but from different points of view. ‘Red dog’ shows the kind and positive side which exemplifies mateship and loyalty. The film ‘Sapphires’ ,which takes place in the 1950’s through to the 1960’s, shows a negative and racist view towards the indigenous people. Both the films show different aspects of the Australian identity, not all insights of the films accurately represent contemporary Australian identity as the Australian identity has changed by the evolution of people and their lifestyle.
The enchanting and heart-warming film Satellite boy, directed by Catriona McKenzie is a story set in the Kimberley Region, north of Western Australia and follows the character of Pete on a journey of discoveries and learning Indigenous culture. McKenzie delivers and utilises a range of different film techniques which help develop the themes of conflict between tradition and changes, confronting challenges and sense of belonging. Through these film techniques, the audience is able to understand that indigenous culture will be more appreciated because of its significance to aboriginals in their life.
the incessant brutality of racism in the 1920s. Rolf de Heer’s 2002 art house feature film The Tracker, represents one of the most “unspeakable aspects of Australian history” (Smaill, 2002, 31), explicitly depicting the extreme racism, violence and inhumanity the egotistical European invaders inflicted on Aboriginals, whilst at the same time glorifies and treasures aboriginal culture and intelligence through film.
The different perspectives create interest and draw us into the experiences of others. The two texts, ‘The Tracker’ composed by Rolf De Heer and ‘Bran Nue Dae’ composed by Rachel Perkins explores this notion. Both films are evident to the racial discrimination of Aborigines in Australia. ‘The Tracker’ is a 2002 art house film set in 1922. It is clear that there were no Aboriginal rights and which white settlement had the greatest control. ‘Bran Nue Dae’ is a 2009 musical/comedy/drama film set in 1969 about the beginning of Aboriginal rights.The different perspectives are from Colonial/Indigenous people. The voices were through the role of the characters, the genre, the music and the cinematography.
Hi everyone! How are you today? Nice to see all you guys here. Let’s me introduce myself first. My name is Jane Kennedy. I am one of writers of the film ‘The Castle’. I’m sure that everyone has watched ‘The Castle’, right? I’m invited to be here and tell you about this movie as well as how I and my team have built up and shown the ideas about the voice of Australians through it. As you know, everyone including Australians have their own way of understanding and an opinion of the world and people in it. That’s called their ‘voice’. However, the way Australians view and understand the world is unique. Let’s come back to ‘The Castle’, this is a story about the Kerrigan family who together stand up to fight against the government for their
The 7 stages of grieving is an Indigenous Australian collective play co-written by Wesley Enoch and performed by Deborah Mailman. The play has the opportunity to inform, celebrate and transform Aboriginal themes and issues to aboriginal and non-aboriginal audiences a-like. It touches on themes and issues from the past, present and future in a comedic way. I have decided to use the scene “Nana’s story” as inspiration for my visual representation. In this scene, the theme of loss of culture is explored in regards to the policy of assimilation and the stolen generation.
In the orientation of the film Blair uses techniques such as setting, this is an important technique as different settings can either show a rise of reduction of prejudice towards indigenous people. The film begins in the Australian outback, where the audience is first introduce to two characters Gail and Kay. The two girls are cousins and are running across the scene, they make up about 10% of the height of the screen. Blair uses long-shot contrasting their vulnerability. Establishment shots of the homes and buildings and also seen, we as the audience understand that the girls are relatively poor as there are many family member sharing minimal houses, they are living in close proximity to each other and live in a remote area. Already Blair has expressed the theme of prejudice by depicting the isolation indigenous people have with white communities. The aboriginal families seem to be living in a mission environment contrasting that they were disadvantaged from the European settlers. After seeing the earlier setting of the
The pub scene in the Australian Outback helped me understand the consequences of prejudice through the combination of dialogue and cinematography. These film features shows the unfair treatment that Aborigines endured because of their race. The mid shots showed how the white Australian audience at the pub Talent Quest ignore the two Aborigine sisters as they began to sin. A panning shot showed the audience’s disapproving and disgusted looks as they avoided eye contact with the sisters. Clearly contrasting with the warm and enthusiastic cheers given to the white Australian performers before them, as also shown in a panning shot. Noticing the coldness of the crowd, Gail says, “Thanks for the half-heart applause.” The dialogue and camera shots clearly outlined the difference in treatment between Aborigines and White Australians in Australia. This clearly shows the inequality between the two races, as Aborigines were clearly mistreated based on their appearance. At the end of the Talent Quest, after the White Australian performer
The notion of the contemporary indigenous identity and the impact of these notions are both explored in texts that have been studied. Ivan Sen’s 2002 film ‘Beneath Clouds’ focuses on the stereotypical behaviours of Indigenous Australians highlighting Lina and Vaughn’s journey. This also signifies the status and place of the Australian identity today. Through the use of visual techniques and stereotypes the ideas that the Indigenous are uneducated, involved in crime and the stereotypical portrayal of white people are all explored. Similarly the notion of urban and rural life is represented in Kennith Slessor’s ‘William Street’ and ‘Country Towns’.
Written during one of the most defining moments in Indigenous Australian history, Enoch and Deborah Mailman’s ‘the 7 stages of grieving’ follows a young Aboriginal woman as she retells some of the hardships and injustices her and her people have and will continue to face. With the quote above in mind, it is clear to see that ‘The 7 stages of grieving’ combines the contemporary conventions of Australian theatre, such as applying multimedia with a decidedly traditional twist. Through the use of stagecraft and symbolism,
In most ancient civilisations, dance was an important component in temple rites. In ancient Egypt, priest and priestesses would perform stately movements mimicking significant events that had occurred, such as war and famine. Bangarra Dance Theatre’s 2008 original production of Mathinna evokes the calamity, confusion and prejudice experienced by the members of the Stolen Generation. The performance is inspired by the true story of a young Aboriginal girls’ journey between the traditional lives of her ancestors to her western colonial adoption. In response to Bangarra’s production, Dance Critic Neville Wright composed that “Mathinna is a powerful dance work that I believe should be seen by audiences across Australia. It successfully educates and informs modern audiences about the hardships and horror that the Aboriginal people endured during what was a very shameful period of Australian history”. The following report will investigate the validly of this quote by evaluating three separate sections of the performance.
The play presents complex notions about family bonds, based upon their shared cultural experiences and the way in which they reinforce their cultural Australian identity and help members of the family endure the physical hardship and social isolation. Jack Davis’ social realist drama, ‘No Sugar’ explores how the varying levels of family unity, rebellion and cultural identity depicted in different characters influences their survival. In this play, the term ‘survival’ operates on two continuums. It is conveyed as the physical sense of life and death through the play’s protagonist, Jimmy Munday, as well as the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit is predominantly reflected in the parallel yet contrasted lives of Mary and Billy Kimberley as well as Gran’s deteriorating health after losing family members. Although Davis articulates the endurance of the Indigenous Australians, he incorporates figures of white authority who seek to demolish the Indigenous race and culture. Set in the time frame of 1929 to 1934, ‘No Sugar’ presents a critique of the conventional colonial British views of that era; and their effect on the preservation of Indigenous spirit and culture.
Western and Indigenous knowledge systems differ in values, habits of mind and practices; however, there has been productive cross-cultural collaboration that integrates global vision with social and cultural dimensions. Productive collaboration addresses past contradictions in the coevolution of society, science and environment. Ten Canoes is a cross-culturally collaborative film that was meant to portray the Yolngu community in its true representation in an attempt to bridge the black and white Australian cultural divide by sharing its traditions and values with a non-Indigenous audience. Important spiritual and cultural information is shared throughout the passage of the film that frames and contextualizes the cosmology of the Yolngu people (Clothier & Dudek, 2009: p. 85). Dutch-born director Rolf De Heer and Yolngu director Peter Djigirr consolidate to show modern audiences the “community’s cultural continuance and to connect between individuals and the community both past and present” (Clothier & Dudek, 2009: p. 86). Additionally, Ten Canoes is only spoken in the Yolngu’s Indigenous language. For Yolngu audiences, “the use of their own languages in Ten Canoes highlights the vibrancy of a continuing linguistic heritage” (Clothier & Dudek, 2009: p. 87). Simultaneously, audiences that cannot understand the language of the Yolngu people read subtitles that create a critical intimacy to engage in “passion and reason while seeking understanding” (Clothier & Dudek, 2009: p.
“Even though he’s against the war, he pays his taxes, pulls jury duty, and never complains about the government like Harry’s friends do.”