The London Australian Film Festival 2007

The Australian Dialectic
The Story of the Kelly Gang, Charles Tait
The Life Story of John Lee: The Man They Could Not Hang, Arthur W Sterry

Ion Martea
posted 20 April 2007

It is highly unlikely that, at least in the English-speaking world, there are moviegoers who have never seen any Australian films. Yet most people can probably count on one hand those films they can identify as Australian. This is less because the general public is not that bright, than a consequence of the ambivalent way Australian film allows itself to be seen. The country’s colonial past contributed to the creation of a cultural output that was almost indistinguishable from that of the two great English speaking powers, the UK and the USA. Particularly in the case of film, it is hard to identify what is specifically Australian in the productions that do succeed beyond that continent’s shores, and one is finally forced to conclude with a single differentiation factor, that is: ‘Everyone speaks like in Neighbours’.

One the other hand, there are a number of auteurs who see themselves as the true pioneers of Australian art. These remain, however, curious discoveries for film buffs willing to escape the Hollywood monotony. Their focus on local issues and concerns mean they are, like Third World cinema directors, ignored by the multiplex and respected on the film festivals circuit. Hence, it is not surprising that there is a need for an Australian Film Festival in London. Earlier in March, already in its thirteenth year, the programme was still packed with cinematic delights, of which, sadly, only a limited number will get proper distribution packages. Candy, the festival’s public favourite, and the remarkable Ten Canoes, are unquestionably the lucky ones who have the best potential at attracting larger audiences outside the festival’s buzz.

Australian cinema shifts between two contrasting styles, that of a commercial Hollywood photocopy and that of a Third World national cinema, and this dialectic is rooted in the country’s cinematic history. The programmers at the Barbican’s 2007 Australian Film Festival, have struck gold with Charles Tait’s The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) and Arthur W Sterry’s The Life Story of John Lee: The Man They Could Not Hang (1921), in a double bill, united by the live accompaniment of John Sweeney’s moving, albeit improvised, score.

Having just celebrated its centenary, The Story of the Kelly Gang is not just a fine example of early Australian film, but also proof that any suggestion that the continent’s cinema is no more than a ‘Hollywood photocopy’ is not simply derogatory, but born of ignorance. While the American film directors were trying to impress their audiences with ‘feature films’ that were running at just a quarter of an hour long, the Tait brothers in Australia were entertaining theirs with a story about a national celebrity (Ned Kelly), which ran for over an hour. This first true feature film established the medium’s potential to deal with a complex narrative, and also established Australia as the world’s leading player in the motion picture business before World War One.

Tait’s film, like most contemporary landmarks, was to become a double victim, first of censorship (for encouraging violence), and secondly of time. The recent discovery of a large excerpt at the National Film and Televison Archive in the UK, made it possible to understand what really made The Story of the Kelly Gang a unique popular experience: a film combining action, comedy and drama with a subtle ease, such that the story has space to breathe, but above all, is able to maintain the audience’s attention and good spirits.

However, it is hard to judge the full effectiveness of the original. The recovered version is only 20 minutes long, and consists primarily of long shots, with a strict (yet often inconsistent) theatrical framing, sometimes using tinted photography. The film has little of the charm that might merit inclusion in the pantheon of early cinema, led by Méliès and Porter. The efforts of the Australian National Film and Sound Archive is laudable; but the surviving print still lacks its predominant historical strength – its continuity. Understandably, the Taits made history in 1906, but sadly, watching the film today, one experiences more the expectation of grandeur, than quality per se.

The choice to pair The Story of the Kelly Gang with The Life Story of John Lee is telling. Made nearly two decades later, Sterry’s film had the advantage of proven practice and improved technology on its side. However, this is not what we notice in the aftermath of Tait’s film. Rather, it is the similarity of style and mood that becomes apparent. The ease of telling a dramatic story with numerous elements of humour and goodwill, at a relaxed pace, and with little moralising, is what can be identified as the unique quality of early Australian film.

Both Ned Kelly and John Lee are accused of acts they know are illegal, yet they do not see themselves as guilty (although in John Lee’s case this belief is more justified). They both exploit society’s wealth, yet they continue to see themselves as misunderstood victims. They both love, yet their self-love is stronger. They both have dramatic, one could easily say, tragic lives, yet they always find time to stop and live the moment, to look and experience the beauty of the passing moment.

Neither film should be taken literally as true representation of a real-life character, but they both demonstrate an emerging Australian film tradition of active moral disengagement. The dichotomy between drama and comedy transforms into a symbiosis of existence into wilderness, either sociological or natural. The protagonist’s self belief also endows him with a Darwinian morality, a worldview focused on the desire to find peace both with himself and the world. Arguably, what these two films show is similar to the morality of Westerns. The principal character has to be a hero in order to create a positive reaction in the audience. He is solitary in a place nature says he does not belong. But the hero has only one life, and he tries to live it, even if that means ignoring conventional moral codes. A kind of national identity is in consequence constructed by the chimera of unity between solitary Robinson Crusoes, melancholic about an idyllic past among their fellows, rebelling against their historical status as conquerors.

Is this why Australian cinema struggles to establish itself between popular Anglophone film and the Third World cinema of national unity? It is difficult to say. Nonetheless, this is an effective dialectic that gave birth to a cinema that is breathing with novelty, disengaged and relentless.