Australian Post-war Documentary Film

Deane Williams

Description

The post-war period in Australian history was rife with critical debate over notions of nation-building, multiculturalism and internationalization. Australian Post-War Documentary Film tackles these issues in a considered, wide-ranging analysis of three types of documentaries: governmental, institutional and radical. Charting the rise of progressive film culture, this volume critiques key films of the era, including The Back of Beyond, and retells film history by placing these documentaries in an international context.

 

Introduction: Grierson Diminished

Chapter 1: A Realist Film Unit and Association in Australia

Chapter 2: Cecil Holmes’s Folk Politics: The Intertextuality of Three in One

Chapter 3: John Heyer’s International Perspective: The Overlanders, The Valley is Ours, The Back of Beyond

Chapter 4: The Neo-Realism of Mike and Stefani

Chapter 5: Settler Journeys

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Película fotográfica
• New Zealand
• General officer
• General
• Australia
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841502595
• Langue: English

Extrait

With erudition and insight, Deane Williams in this book reconstructs a previously obscured era of documentary cinema in Australia, shedding light on the network of affiliations and associations that underlay the making of a cluster of compelling, politically charged documentary films in the post-war era. Keying the study to an international discourse on documentary politics and aesthetics that extends far beyond the familiar compass of Grierson s argument for documentary as an instrument of nation-building, Williams demonstrates how post-war documentary film-makers drew creatively on the practices and themes of left-wing, government, and corporate-sponsored film-making groups around the globe, as well as ideas about cinema aesthetics in wide circulation. At the same time he keeps an eye sharply fixed on the unique circumstance in which Australian post-war documentaries were produced, distributed, and exhibited. Works by heretofore insufficiently appreciated filmmakers - Ken Coldicutt, Bob Matthews, Cecil Holmes, John Heyer, R. Masyln Williams - serve as anchors for a detailed exploration of the fragile and shifting infrastructures attending documentary production, and for perceptive commentary on the stylistic and thematic patterns to be found in particular works. Especially rich in this regard is Williams discussion of the settler journey motif, a recurring documentary trope reworked in a variety of Australian post-war documentaries, and echoed in the very conditions of production that sent several of the film-makers on intellectual travels abroad. In attending closely to these films, Williams provides a model for understanding post-war documentary as a complex, transnational form that was flexibly adapted to local social and political conditions. This is an immensely thoughtful and timely contribution to the growing literature on the history of documentary cinema.
Charles Wolfe Professor of Film and Media Studies University of California, Santa Barbara.
Deane Williams re-evaluates Australian documentary film production after World War II, positioning it as part of an international left culture, which can embrace producers as different as the Realist Film Unit, Cecil Holmes, John Heyer and Maslyn Williams. He invites readers on an always enlightening and often exciting journey, through a complex web of people and films and events, to view Australian culture through the documentary film arc of mirrors .
Associate Professor Ina Bertrand Principal Fellow in the Screen Studies programme University of Melbourne.
This book provides a comprehensive and in-depth survey of post-war traditions of Australian documentary film. The book begins with an account of the formation and activities of the Realist Film Unit/Association, charting the development of a committed documentary film culture in Melbourne from 1945 onwards, and prefacing that with an account of the growth of a progressive film culture in Australia during the 1930s. After this, the book turns to a close analysis of a number of significant Australian films made during the 1950s. In each case, extensive primary research produces a wealth of detail and analysis of these films, and also illuminates the more general context of Australian documentary film-making and the engagement with issues of cinematic realism.
Australian Post-War Documentary Film: An Arc of Mirrors is a thoroughly and painstakingly researched study of its subject, which draws upon a wealth of new oral and other forms of historical resource related to the Australian labour movement and associated film-making. The book will be invaluable to scholars and students of Australian documentary cinema, and the documentary film in general.
Ian Aitken Associate Professor in Film Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, and Senior Research Fellow in Film Studies at De Montfort University.
This book is for Maddie and Ella Williams
Australian Post-War Documentary Film
An Arc of Mirrors
Deane Williams
First Published in the UK in 2008 by Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2008 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2008 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons Copy Editor: Rebecca Vaughan-Williams
Typesetting: Mac Style, Nafferton, E. Yorkshire
ISBN 978-1-84150-210-6 EISBN 978-1-84150-259-5
Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
C ONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: Grierson Diminished
Chapter 1: A Realist Film Unit and Association in Australia
Chapter 2: Cecil Holmes s Folk Politics: The Intertextuality of Three in One
Chapter 3: John Heyer s International Perspective: The Overlanders, The Valley is Ours, The Back of Beyond
Chapter 4: The Neo-Realism of Mike and Stefani
Chapter 5: Settler Journeys
Filmography
References
L IST OF I LLUSTRATIONS
Cover image - Maslyn Williams (far right) and Reg Pearse (behind camera) on location shooting Mike and Stefani (1958). Courtesy Film Australia.
Prices and the People (1948) Realist Film Unit.
Betty Lacey (Elizabeth Coldicutt) filming 19?? May Day March in Melbourne. Courtesy Elizabeth Coldicutt and David Muir.
Bob Mathews filming demonstration, Melbourne 19??. Courtesy Mathews family.
Prices and the People (1948) stills.
Betty Lacey, Vic Arnold (pointing) Bob Mathews (far right) at Melbourne Film Festival at Olinda in 1952. Courtesy Mathews family.
Ken Coldicutt. Courtesy Elizabeth Coldicutt.
Cecil Holmes. Courtesy Film Australia.
John Heyer. Deane Williams collection.
Dan McAlpine (Chips Rafferty) and Mary Parsons (Daphne Campbell in The Overlanders (1946). Courtesy National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Tom Kruse (left), William Henry Butler (right) in The Back of Beyond (1954). Courtesy of National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
The Back of Beyond (1954). Deane Williams collection.
Damien Parer, Maslyn Williams, Frank Hurley and George Silk. Courtesy National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Mike and Stefani (1958). Courtesy Film Australia.
Mike and Stefani (1958). Courtesy Film Australia.
Mike and Stefani (1958). Courtesy National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Mike and Stefani (1958). Courtesy Film Australia.
Mike and Stefani (1958). Courtesy Film Australia.
Mike and Stefani (1958). Courtesy Film Australia.
A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am greatly indebted to many people, all of whom provided support and advice and I wish I could thank everyone here. My first thankyou must go to Bill Routt for his endless patience, assistance and unique ability to provide encouragement. My thanks to Ross Gibson for his mentorship, for encouragement, accommodation and yarning in Sydney. Thanks to John Hughes for granting me access to his Realist Film Unit/Association collection that forms the primary material for Chapter 1 and for encouraging me to read Australian film historically.
Thanks to Paul Adams, Chris Long, Albert Moran and Angela O Brien for access to their unpublished research; to Ken Berryman, Helen Tully and Zsuzsi Szucs at the National Film and Sound Archive for access to all the films and the interviews with John Heyer and Cecil Holmes and to Martha Ansara for her interview with John Heyer. Thanks to Aysen Mustafa, Leigh Astbury, Ina Bertrand, Rolando Caputo, Sally Carr, Felicity Collins, John Cumming, Graeme Cutts, Annie Goldson, Helen Grace, Kevin Hart, John Hess, Brian MacFarlane, Andrew Milner, Gaye Naismith, Tom O Regan, Keyan Tomaselli and Constantine Verevis for their assistance at various times, all of which proved valuable. Thanks to Judy Adamson, Lloyd Edmonds, Edna Fitzsimons, Amira Inglis, Ed Schefferle, Dot Thompson, Catherine Duncan, Ken Coldicutt, Elizabeth Coldicutt, Gerry Harant, Bob Klepner, Joan Long, Anna Muir, Roslyn Poignant, Colin Dean, Eddie Allison and Don and Nicky Munro for providing accounts of their era. Special thanks to the late Cecil Holmes, Bob Mathews, John Heyer and to Gerry Harant for agreeing to be interviewed and for permission to use their words in this book and to the late Ron Maslyn Williams for permission to access the interview with Andrew Pike and Merrilyn Fitzpatrick held by the National Film and Sound Archive.
Different versions of some portions of this book have appeared in Metro 100 (1994), 104 (December 1995), and 129/30 (Spring 2001); Screening the Past Issue 2 (1997) and Issue 7 (1999); Australian Studies [UK] 17: 1 (Summer 2002); Filmnews 23: 9 (1993); Studies in Australasian Film 1: 1 (2007) and in two collections: Screening the Past: Aspects of Early Australian Film , edited by Ken Berryman (Canberra: National Film and Sound Archive [Australia], 1995); From Grierson to the Docu-Soap: Breaking the Boundaries , edited by John Izod and Richard Kilborn with Matthew Hibberd (Luton: University of Luton Press, 2000).
P REFACE
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Melbourne-based poet Bernard O Dowd wrote a sonnet entitled Australia , in which he described the new nation as the Last sea-thing dredged by sailor Time from Space .
It s a great line. Say it out loud a few times and you ll never forget it. But don t believe it. Argue with it instead. For one thing, Australia may well hakve been the first geographical space to appear in terrestrial time. But more to the point, this notion that Australia is isolated, abandoned, and desolately awaiting the news, it s a notion only half right and it simply does not accord with the way human beings have always functioned here. Suspicion of outside influences is one defining characteristic of Austral