PARER’S WAR © ATOM 2014 A STUDY GUIDE BY ROBERT LEWIS http://www.metromagazine.com.au ISBN: 978-1-74295-443-1 http://www.theeducationshop.com.au 4 1 2 3 1: Damien Parer (Matthew Le Nevez) 2: Damien Parer runs from explosion * SUMMARY 3: Damien Parer 4: Marie Cotter (Adelaide 5 Clemens) and Damien Parer 5: Damien Parer Parer’s War is a telemovie about praying Australian cameraman Damien Parer, whose films of Australians in combat in In the teeming hell of jungle warfare, World War Two helped Australia then, the crowds lining up at the theatres Damien films his masterpiece of front- and can help students now, under- stretch around the block. The film is a line battle in all its shocking, intimate, stand the true nature and seriousness hit – an Academy Award awaits. frightening reality. Amidst the turmoil, of the war in Papua and New Guinea. his camera is broken. His shield is To his shock, Damien discovers that gone. Damien vows to return to find It’s six short months after Pearl one of his images of a lookout post Marie. Harbour. Alongside the commandos, has been improperly released to 29-year-old Damien Parer lugs his the papers. It precipitates a furious But it’s a very different Marie he’s heavy camera gear up and down the fight with Damien’s Department of coming home to. Wiser, smarter, razorback ridges of New Guinea, film- Information boss, the officious Bob wittier, she knows what to do with ing the savage skirmishes. Hawes. Damien is assigned to cover this man. Eventually Damien says, ‘I the ‘fluff’ stories instead of filming the suppose I’ll marry you’. ‘Of course you When he returns to Sydney gaunt frontline soldiers, the story he must will,’ says Marie. and haggard, Damien crashes with an tell. old friend, fashion photographer Max On their first night of honeymoon, a Dupain. A large photo of Marie Cotter, Enraged and frustrated, he gets drunk child is conceived. But Damien must Damien’s girlfriend, stares at him from again. He is compelled to film the war return to the war front with Paramount, the studio wall, but he doesn’t call or but terrified he will return to Marie covering the Americans at Guam. let her know he’s back. maimed and broken. His fears fuel a Before he leaves, he has another of final self-destructive fight with Marie. the premonitions that have occasion- At a welcome home party, Damien is It’s over. ally haunted him. ‘I don’t think this is rude and dismissive to Marie; then, going to last.’ outrageously drunk, he drives her When he returns to New Guinea in a 2014 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION home and delivers a grudging propos- mood of rebellion, Damien discovers Days later, on the small island of al of marriage. She furiously turns him that the image released to the press Peleliu, Damien is walking backwards down, too young, hurt and insulted to nearly cost the lives of those men. He filming the advancing troops. He know how to handle him. resigns. He has a film in mind – to re- wants to capture the expression in the cord the real life of a soldier; the truth eyes of the men going into battle – his When Damien’s New Guinea film about war. truth about war. Kokoda Front Line! (1942) is released, 2 2 1: Damien Parer 2: Damien Parer with camera 3: Damien Parer and Chester Wilmot (Alexander England) 4: Ronnie Williams (Luke Ford), Damien Parer and 1 Marie Cotter 5: Matthew Le Nevez and Adelaide Clemens * CURRICULUM 3 APPLICABILITY Parer’s War (Alister Grierson, 2014) is a resource that can be used for middle and senior students in: - HISTORY YEAR 10 – The experi- ences of Australians during World War Two (Kokoda) and the Anzac 4 Legend. - ENGLISH YEAR 10 – Analyse and eval- uate how people, cultures, places, events, objects and concepts are represented in texts, including questions that you would want to ask media texts, through language, 5 him. structural and/or visual choices. – Biography. Discuss all the questions that class - MEDIA ARTS YEAR 9 & 10 – Evaluate image of the Kokoda Track campaign members have suggested and choose how genre and media conven- in World War Two. It does not matter the top ten that you would ask. tions, and technical and symbolic at this stage whether you know a lot elements, are manipulated to make or very little, or even if your ideas are representations and meaning. totally wrong. It is not a test. It is just a * BACKGROUND – Evaluate how social, institutional way of finding out what you know, and INFORMATION and ethical issues influence the what you think you know. See Item 1 making and use of media artworks. on page 17. Parer’s War assumes some knowledge Parer’s War runs for 98 minutes. You will be able to return to this at the of Australia in World War Two before end of the film and see if you would the Papua New Guinea campaigns of 2014 © ATOM SCREEN EDUCATION change any of these answers and 1942. * BEFORE ideas. You can add additional aspects WATCHING THE to the list if you want to. Look at this brief summary of the state of the war at the time we meet Damien FILM 2. Imagine that an Australian soldier Parer in 1942. See following two who served on the Kokoda Track was pages ‘Background’. 1. Brainstorm to record your existing coming to talk to your class. List five 3 BACKGROUND During the 1930s, Germany’s Nazi biggest test came against the crack But the American aircraft carriers that government was expanding its terri- German troops who were trying to could provide the means of attack- tory and rearming. In 1939 it threatened take the port of Tobruk, which would ing Japanese invasion forces were to invade Poland. Finally confronting allow them to advance to Egypt. Allied not in port. The attack also failed to German expansionism, Britain and troops, including many thousands of destroy the oil supplies held there. Had France warned Germany that if it in- Australians, set up their defences and the aircraft carriers and oil reserves vaded Poland, they would declare war. were able to hold off repeated and been destroyed, the outcome of the Germany did invade on 1 September, determined attacks. The Germans Second World War may have been very and on 3 September Britain and France had contemptuously referred to the different. declared war on Germany. defenders as ‘rats’ in their holes – the Australian and British troops took on Japan also attacked Hong Kong, the Most Australian people felt very closely this title with pride and called them- Philippines, Malaya, Guam and Wake tied to Britain because of the historical selves the ‘Rats of Tobruk’. Island at the same time as attack- connection. They were also opposed to ing Pearl Harbour. The Japanese now German expansion by force. When the The Australians fought well and suc- seemed invincible and swept through British Government declared war, Prime cessfully in North Africa, but disaster Asia and much of the Pacific area. Minister Menzies announced ‘Australia struck in Greece and Crete. The 6th is also at war’. Division had been sent to Greece to Australian, British and other help oppose enemy invasion. This was Commonwealth troops resisted the Those elements of the Royal Australian a disastrous decision. The German Japanese invasion with mixed success. Navy that were overseas were put un- forces inflicted heavy casualties among The Japanese were outnumbered by der British command; the Army began the Australians and the British and the Allied forces, but they were battle recruiting and training men, and under over 2000 were taken prisoner. The veterans and used the terrain much the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) survivors retreated to Crete, where the better. There was some heavy fight- Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) same thing happened – defeat, more ing – the greatest number of Australian recruits were sent to Canada and South dead, and over 3000 Australian prison- combat deaths of any campaign came Africa for training and then posted to ers taken. The Royal Navy, including in the two months of the Malaya cam- serve in Royal Air Force (RAF) units in Australian ships, suffered heavy losses paign – but there was also much re- the air war in Europe (though where in ships sunk and damaged while suc- treating, confusion and, in some cases, possible they maintained their separate cessfully carrying out the evacuation of panic. The Allied troops retreated to RAAF identity). Greece and Crete. Singapore and, faced with threats to the civilian population and the certainty In 1940 Germany attacked. Its blitzkrieg Parer had filmed Australian troops in all that their water supply would be cut off, (‘lightning war’) used aircraft and tanks these places. surrendered. Singapore was supposed to move quickly and break through the to protect Australia. It fell, and with defences of most western European The increasingly serious war situation it the belief that Britain could protect nations. After June, Britain remained meant that as many men as possible Australia. The Malaya/Singapore cam- the only European country still at war were needed in combat and direct paign was Australia’s greatest disaster against Germany, but German forces in support roles, so the services decided of the war. It constituted 25 per cent of France were now less than fifty kilome- to start replacing men in non-combat all battle deaths against the Japanese tres from the British coast roles with women. For the first time, in those eight weeks.