8. Australia and the Australian Film in the 1990S
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OTHES DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit „The People of Oz: Australian-ness in Filmic Representations from the 1970s to the Present“ Verfasserin Astrid Ivancsits angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, im September 2009 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 190 344 362 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: UF Englisch Betreuerin ODER Betreuer: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Eva Müller-Zettelmann ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my parents for their continued support throughout my studies. Thank you for encouraging me in everything I have chosen to do. Thanks to Prof. Müller-Zettelmann, whose positive attitude and expertise drove this thesis forward. And special thanks to Philipp, who supported me throughout my ups and downs. Thank you for your patience and understanding. iii iv Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 2. Collective Memory, Cultural Memory and the Imagined Community – From Halbwachs to Anderson ................................................................................... 3 3. Australia as an Imagined Community ....................................................................... 6 4. The Australian Identity Crises .................................................................................. 8 4.1. White Australia and Its Identity Crisis ............................................................... 9 4.2. The Origins of White Australia – Nothing to be Proud of ............................... 10 4.3. Australian National Identity or Second-Hand Britishness? .............................. 11 5. The Rise of National Pride among Australia’s White Population .......................... 13 5.1. A New National Sentiment among the Australian Intelligentsia ..................... 14 5.2. The Creation of a National Australian ‘Type’ .................................................. 15 6. Inventing Australian-ness – Dominant Elements in the Quintessential Australian Character ................................. 17 6.1. Cultural Concepts ............................................................................................. 17 6.1.1. Anti-Authoritarianism and the Anti-British Stance .................................. 17 6.1.2. Egalitarianism ........................................................................................... 20 6.1.3. Mateship .................................................................................................... 21 6.2. National Australian Figures .............................................................................. 23 6.2.1. The Bushman Legend ............................................................................... 23 6.2.2. The Pioneer Legend .................................................................................. 25 6.2.3. The Anzac Legend .................................................................................... 27 6.2.4. The Ocker .................................................................................................. 30 6.3. Dominant Cultural Elements and Their Problems............................................ 33 v 7. Australia in the 1970s and Early 1980s – Using Australian Film as a Vehicle of National Identity ............................................ 34 7.1. The Rise of the New Wave Australian Cinema ............................................... 34 7.1.1. Government Intervention .......................................................................... 35 7.1.2. Initial Success - The Australian Ocker Comedy ....................................... 36 7.1.3. The Australian Film Commission (AFC) and the Period Film ................. 37 7.2. The Films of the New Wave Cinema ............................................................... 40 7.2.1. Gallipoli (1981)............................................................................................. 40 7.2.2. Crocodile Dundee (1986).............................................................................. 48 7.2.3. The Man from Snowy River (1982) ............................................................... 55 7.3. Conclusion: Gallipoli, Crocodile Dundee and The Man from Snowy River as Vehicles of National Identity .............................................................................. 63 8. Australia and the Australian Film in the 1990s....................................................... 65 8.1. Calling for a Change – Social and Political Developments in Australia .......... 65 8.2. The Fall of the AFC – The Australian Film Industry of the 1990s .................. 67 8.3. The Australian New World Cinema and Its Characteristics ............................ 68 8.4. The Films of the New World Cinema .............................................................. 70 8.4.1. Strictly Ballroom (1992) ........................................................................... 70 8.4.2. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) ......................... 78 8.4.3. Muriel’s Wedding (1994) .......................................................................... 86 8.5. Conclusion: Strictly Ballroom, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Muriel’s Wedding and the New National Self-Image ......................................... 95 9. Australia (2008) – A Film by Baz Luhrmann ......................................................... 97 9.1. Content ............................................................................................................. 98 9.2. Analysis .......................................................................................................... 100 9.2.1. Dealing with the Past .............................................................................. 100 9.2.2. The Aboriginal Community .................................................................... 103 9.2.3. Sliding into Old Habits – The Depiction of Myths and Legends in Australia ................................. 104 9.3. Conclusion: Australia and Its Return to Archaic Formulas ........................... 115 10. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 117 11. Bibliography....................................................................................................... 120 vi 1. Introduction What exactly is history at the national level? Is it merely the sum of all the diverse histories of peoples, places and communities, or do only some of these have national significance? Do all Australians – Indigenous, settler, immigrant – share the one national history? [...] And do we all have a national identity? Can we have none or more than one? (Carter 3) In his work Dispossession, Dreams and Diversity, David Carter poses some crucial key questions. Pointing to the difficulty involved in the process of defining the concept of Australian national identity, he emphasises a factor highly relevant to the present thesis: there is no ‘true’ Australian national identity. As Richard White has convincingly argued, any attempt to derive a universal definition would equate to an unreal, fictional place (viii), comparable to the Land of Oz in Frank Baum’s The Wizard Of Oz. Taking this assumption as a starting point, The People of Oz1 explores how Australian national identity has been represented over three periods of Australian film. The first chapter provides theoretical background knowledge on influential concepts in the field of identity studies, including Maurice Halbwachs’ collective memory, Jan Assmann’s cultural memory and Benedict Anderson’s imagined community. In this context, special consideration is given to the components that are involved in the process of nation formation. Drawing on the works of Halbwachs, Assmann and Anderson, the subsequent sections trace back the emergence of an Australian national ‘type’, and explore the dominant cultural elements in Australian society. Here, special attention is paid to the emergence and definition of central cultural figures, such as the Bushman or the pioneer, and the values and principles they are said to embody – the anti-authoritarian stance, egalitarianism and mateship. 1 Oz is not only the fictional land in Frank Baum’s novel The Wizard Of Oz, but also an abbreviation for Australia. 1 The main part of the thesis is devoted to the medium film and its immense importance as vehicle of ideas about the nation. On the basis of seven Australian films, this thesis investigates how Australian-ness has been depicted over three periods of Australian cinema: the New Wave Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, the Australian cinema of the 1990s and the cinema of the 21st century. The first section discusses three of the most successful Australian New Wave Cinema films: Gallipoli, Crocodile Dundee and The Man from Snowy River. The insights gained from their analysis, are compared and contrasted to three films of the 1990s as examples of a different approach to the issue: Strictly Ballroom, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel’s Wedding. The final chapter focuses on Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, as a representative of the 21st century of Australian cinema. Produced in 2008, Australia may well be regarded the most recent Australian film. In this sense, The People of Oz may well be viewed as giving a comprehensive overview of the filmic representations of Australian- ness from the 1970s to the