HIST112 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Cinema Of Australia, Jedda, Secondary Source
HIST112 Lecture Notes Wednesday 3rd May 2017
Sources and Context
- I this uit, ee thought aout historial fils as idos ito the era i hih
they were made.
- They give us insights into the attitudes and preoccupations of the people who make
them and the context of their own day.
- E.g. Spartacus is a primary source for the era the film is made but a secondary source
for ancient Rome.
- E.g. “hidlers List told more about an event in the 1990s than it did about the
Holocaust.
What are they?
- Primary source
o Anything created in a particular historical period that people use to learn
about that period
o E.g. “oloo Northups eoir
- Secondary Sources
o Accounts of the past that have been created after the event.
o E.g. 12 years as a slave
The Film
- Budget = $10.5 million
- Shot over 7 weeks in South Australia, mostly in Flinders Rangers.
- 2nd biggest grossing Australian film of the year.
- The last time a film with Indigenous characters worked at the Australian box office
was back in the 1950s with Charles Chauvels Jedda.
- The role Aborigines usually play in Australian films largely reflects their standing in
society in general: largely invisible.
The Plot
- Set in 1931.
- 14 year old Molly, 8 year old Daisy and their 10 year old cousin Gracie live in the WA
town of Jigalong.
- Protetor of Aorigies, A.O.Neille, takes these girls to his re-education camp by
force.
- They escape to return to Jigalong via the Rabbit Proof Fence
- Neville tries to capture them, however has to suspend his search because he was
unable to fund it.
The Book
- The film is based on the book, Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, by Doris Pilkington
about the journey of her mother, Molly.
- The key event of the 1500km trek home through the desert is true.
- The film deviates from the book in some ways.
Phillip Noyce
- Australian born director, successful in Hollywood before he returned to make Rabbit
Proof Fence.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- First film – Backroads (1977) set in outback NSW. Starred Aboriginal political activist
Gary Foley
- Made Clear and Present Danger, Bone Collector, Salt.
- Why does this matter?
o “hos hes redile i his field ad highly respeted.
o Popular director = funding for the film and more viewers.
Australias Assiilatio Poliy
- Assiilatio is forig soeoe fro aother ulture to adopt a outrys ulture.
- Assuptios of assiilatio is that its easy, that the host ulture is superior, that
the mainstream culture is willing to accept assimilation, that there is a culture to
assimilate into.
- The film is set in 1931, as Australian governments were responding to increasing
numbers of mixed race children.
o Aboriginals were dying out, however mixed race children were being born.
- At this point, Governments were moving from a focus on Protection to a policy of
Assimilation.
- In 1937, a meeting of Australian state goerets resoled that the destiy of the
natives of Aboriginal origin, but not of the full-blood, lies in their ultimate absorption
y the people of the Cooealth.
- Many of the quotes in the film about assimilation were said at the 1937
Commonwealth Aorigial Welfare Coferee, or oe fro A.O. Neilles o
writings.
- At this oferee, Neille opely asserted that he had the poer uder the at to
take any child from its mother at any stage of its life, no matter whether the mother
be legally arried or ot.
- 1934 – western Australian royal commission looked at the locations of the Moore
river settlement and declared that the settlement was unfit for aboriginals to live
The Stolen Generations
- Assimilation in WA involved the removal of large number of Indigenous children
from their families in order to be trained as whites.
- Usually involved institutionalisation, although later in the century it also involved
adoption.
- Targeted Aboriginal people were not allowed to speak languages other than English
nor engage in any indigenous cultural practices.
- Assimilation was often understood as a temporary period of tutelage before the
aorigial prole as soled.
A.O. Neville
- Chief protector of Aborigines in Western Australia from 1915 until 1940.
- Did have an obsession of skin colour and how it defined a person.
- Presided over the policy removing Aboriginal children from their parents.
- Strong believer in the biological absorption of Aboriginal Australians into the general
population
- More than 25% of Noongar ere reoed i this ay ad set to aps, like the
Moore River camp in the film.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
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