Australian Post-War Documentary Film: An Arc of Mirrors

178 Pages·2008·2.92 MB·English

by  Deane Williams

Australian Post-War Documentary Film W
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An Arc of Mirrors ll
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By Deane Williams m
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This book is, at one level, a selective history of Australian
documentary film in the immediate post-war years. At
another level it is a sketch of an internationalist progressive
film culture in the same place and period. It examines some
landmark films in Australian Film History, including Three
in One, The Back of Beyond and Mike and Stefani and places
these important works in an international context. In this
groundbreaking work of film history Deane Williams proposes
that, while these films have been understood as inferior
remakes of “overseas” written, theatrical and filmic texts, ‘A thoroughly and painstakingly researched A
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these films are evidence of an Australian film culture that was study of its subject, which draws upon
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a key participant in an international network of documentary a wealth of new oral and other forms of tr
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practice and criticism. historical resource related to the Australian l
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labour movement and associated film- a
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Deane Williams is Head of Film and Television Studies, making’ – Ian Aitken, Associate Professor P
Monash University, Melbourne. He is author of Mapping in Film Studies at Hong Kong Baptist o
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the Imaginary: Ross Gibson’s Camera Natura and, with Brian University, and Senior Research Fellow in t-
McFarlane, author of Michael Winterbottom, and Editor of Film Studies at De Montfort University. W
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Studies in Documentary Film. r
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‘This is an immensely thoughtful and timely contribution to the
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growing literature on the history of documentary cinema.’ n
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– Charles Wolfe, Professor of Film and Media Studies, a
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University of California, Santa Barbara. y
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‘Deane Williams invites readers on an always enlightening and m
often exciting journey, through a complex web of people and films : A
and events, to view Australian culture through the documentary n
film ‘arc of mirrors’. – Associate Professor Ina Bertrand, A
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Principal Fellow in the Screen Studies Programme, University c
of Melbourne. o
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intellect / www.intellectbooks.com
‘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.
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This book is for Maddie and Ella Williams
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Australian Post-War
Documentary Film
An Arc of Mirrors
Deane Williams
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Australian Postwar Film.indd 3 12/8/08 18:02:59
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 6
Acknowledgements 7
Preface 9
Introduction: Grierson Diminished 11
Chapter 1: A Realist Film Unit and Association in Australia 21
Chapter 2: Cecil Holmes’s Folk Politics: The Intertextuality of Three in One 51
Chapter 3: John Heyer’s International Perspective: The Overlanders, The Valley is
Ours, The Back of Beyond 83
Chapter 4: The Neo-Realism of Mike and Stefani 113
Chapter 5: Settler Journeys 141
Filmography 153
References 157
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L i
ist of 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.
Australian Postwar Film.indd 6 12/8/08 18:02:59
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).
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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 Australia, but the obverse is true too. The trade of goods and ideas
has long been a mainstay of Australian society. For example, there have been centuries of
interactions between Macassan sailors and North Australian Yolngnu people. Elsewhere in the
continent, commodities and information were carried hundreds of kilometres along communication
channels that were kept open for thousands of years. And in more recent times – once the
Europeans had colonized the place – the newcomers maintained a kind of mania for
connectedness, sending and receiving messages and merchandise back and forth to the larger
world as if their lives depended on these transactions, which was indeed the case in the early
decades of the settlement. Understood like this, the country has a history of remediation, a
history that has been active, most likely, for many centuries.
By the middle of the twentieth century, documentary film was part of this history. Even as the
documentary was in evolution and contestation worldwide, the Australian variant of the form
was being imported and produced in multiple, surprising modes and sub-genres. With his new
book, Deane Williams helps us see this creative unruliness clearly. In Williams’ account, we see
how policy-driven nation-building vied with aesthetic envisaging and spiritual questing, how
transnational commerce (the Shell company’s film units, for example) intertwined with the local
chapters of socialist cultural troupes, how nationalists and globalists circled around each other
and sometimes traded places. We see, in fact, a kaleidoscopic swirl of documentary activities
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