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
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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 SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 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 SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 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. Australia also women were now allowed to join lost over 15,000 men and a number When Italy entered the war on the side the armed services: the Women’s of women nurses who were prisoners of Germany, new theatres of war – the Australian Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF) of war – more than one third of them Mediterranean and North Africa – was formed in February, the Women’s would die over the next three years, opened up. Royal Australian Naval Service some of them brutally murdered. (WRANS) in April, and the Australian Royal Australian Air Force planes and Women’s Army Service (AWAS) in July. The Japanese took Java – capturing an Royal Australian Navy ships were now There was also an increased com- Allied force that included the Australian sent into action in this area. In July, pulsory call up of men aged between ‘Black Force’ of about 3000 men – after HMAS Sydney sank the Italian cruiser eighteen and sixty for the Australian ten days of fighting and continued to Bartolomeo Colleoni, a significant Military Forces – the militia, the con- sweep towards New Guinea. Three SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 Australian naval success of the war. scripted body that was reserved for Australian Battalion groups were sent home defence of Australia. to defend Ambon (Gull Force), Timor Australian troops had been sent to the (Sparrow Force) and Rabaul (Lark Middle East early in 1941. They were On 7 December 1941, the Japanese Force). Each comprised about 1000 very successful in defeating Italian attacked the United States base at men, and they were poorly equipped troops at Bardia, Benghazi and Tobruk, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, hoping to destroy and outnumbered by the Japanese and Vichy French troops in Syria. The a major part of the American fleet. forces. Some of these men were killed 4 BACKGROUND in battle, some were executed on sur- render and many died as a result of their brutal treatment as prisoners of war of the Japanese. About 400 man- aged to make it back to Australia.
Port Moresby was now the key to Papua New Guinea, and to the control of Australia – if the Japanese could con- trol that port and the surrounding sea lanes, they could launch attacks against the Australian mainland, disrupt sup- plies coming to Australia from America to be used against the Japanese and could protect any gathering forces to invade Australia – if they wanted to make that their aim. This was why Parer was filming on the Kokoda Track in 1942: the Australians were resisting a Japanese push to seize Port Moresby by using the overland track from Buna.
Kokoda campaign timeline
-- 21 JULY 1942: 2000 elite Japanese troops land at Gona on the north- ern shores of Papua New Guinea. -- 29 JULY 1942: 900 Japanese ad- vance troops attack seventy-seven soldiers of the 39th militia battalion defending Kokoda. -- 12 AUGUST 1942: Kokoda falls and the 39th militia withdraws to Isurava. -- 16 AUGUST 1942: 1200 experienced Australian Imperial Forces troops move up the track to reinforce the 39th militia at Isurava. -- 18 AUGUST 1942: 10,000 Japanese http://www.kokodawalkway.com.au/stations/map.html reinforcements begin landing on the northern shores of Papua New Guinea and move up towards -- 24 SEPTEMBER 1942: The Japanese -- 15 NOVEMBER 1942: 3000 American Isurava. are ordered to retreat. troops arrive at Gona. -- 26 AUGUST 1942: At dawn, 6000 -- 24 SEPTEMBER 1942: Australians -- 9 DECEMBER 1942: The Australians Japanese troops attack the 39th commence a counter-attack. capture Gona. militia at Isurava. -- 28 SEPTEMBER 1942: Australians -- 1 JANUARY 1943: The Australians and -- 26 AUGUST 1942: During the even- retake Irobaiwa Ridge. Americans capture Buna. ing, the first 600 AIF troops arrive -- 7 OCTOBER 1942: Australians reach -- 12 JANUARY 1943: The Australians at Isurava to reinforce the stranded Brigade Hill (near Efogi). and Americans capture 39th militia. -- 13 OCTOBER 1942: Australians arrive Sanananda. -- 30 AUGUST 1942: The Japanese take at Templeton’s Crossing. -- 19 JANUARY 1943: The remaining Isurava. -- 22–28 OCTOBER 1942: Australians Japanese are ordered to evacuate SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 -- 30 AUGUST – 8 SEPTEMBER 1942: retake Eora Creek after a bitter from Sanananda. Australian fighting withdrawal. six-day battle. -- 22 JANUARY 1943: The campaign -- 8 SEPTEMBER 1942: Japanese take -- 1 NOVEMBER 1942: Australians enter ends with the defeat of the Brigade Hill (near Efogi). Kokoda unopposed. Japanese. -- 16 SEPTEMBER 1942: Japanese take -- 8–12 NOVEMBER 1942: The reinforced Irobaiwa Ridge, 40 kilometres from Japanese make a stand at the vil- Port Moresby. lages of Oivi and Gorari. 5 1: Damien Parer 2: Damien Parer 3: Damien Parer and Marie Cotter in train 4: Damien Parer 5: Damien Parer praying
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1.1 Summarise Parer’s personal qualities that we are shown in the 5 film. For each aspect that you identify, **EXPLORING refer to a specific incident in the film IDEAS AND that supports your judgement. For or events to emphasise about the example, his deep Roman Catholic person. THEMES IN THE faith is shown in the way he openly FILM kneels and prays to Mary, the mother Look at this biography of Damien of Jesus, for help and support; his Parer. Identify those aspects that are integrity is shown in the way he included in Parer’s War and those that Now watch the film and discuss the respects the need to protect the com- are excluded. following aspects. mando unit’s lookout over Japanese lines, even though others later reveal ••••••• Parer’s War and the location of the lookout. Do this for Biography both strengths and weaknesses. Use a Parer, Damien Peter (1912–1944) 1 summary table like this: by Neil McDonald Damien Parer was an official Australian Damien Peter Parer (1912–1944), Quality or personal How shown war cameraman whose Pacific War characteristic in the film war photographer and camera- news film Kokoda Front Line! was man, was born on 1 August 1912 awarded an Academy Award in 1943. at Malvern, Melbourne; he was the youngest of eight children of John He died filming an American landing Arthur Parer, an hotelkeeper from
on the island of Peleliu in 1944. Spain, and his Victorian-born wife SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 Teresa, née Carolin. Damien attended Parer’s War presents the story of the Loreto Convent School in Portland, St last three years of his life. Stanislaus’ College in Bathurst, New South Wales (1923–29), and St Kevin’s The film is therefore a biography and 1.2 A film biography has to make College in Toorak, Melbourne (1929– we can use it to understand how biog- choices about what to include, what 30). He was apprenticed as a photog- raphies are created. to exclude and what key aspects rapher, briefly to Spencer Shier and 6 1–3: Damien Parer
1 then to Arthur Dickinson, with whom he completed his articles in 1933. Following a spell of freelance work and a period when he was unemployed, he was hired by Charles Chauvel as a camera assistant in the making of 2 3 the film Heritage (1935). At Chauvel’s instigation, National Studios Ltd in Sydney engaged Parer for the shoot- achievement in documentary produc- ing of Uncivilised (1936), The Flying tion’ and later awarded an Oscar to its Doctor (1936) and Rangle River (1936). on 2 January 1941. With Frank Hurley producer, Ken Hall. Chauvel also hired him for the filming he covered the Australian assault on of Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940). Tobruk on 21–22 January. Three days In 1943, Parer’s footage was used later he accompanied ‘C’ Company, in the Cinesound newsreels Men of Between feature films, Parer made 2nd/11th Battalion, in its attack on the Timor, The Bismarck Convoy Smashed ‘home movies’ and documentaries, aerodrome at Derna and shot his first and – arguably his finest work –Assault and worked as a studio photographer. film of infantry advancing under fire. on Salamaua. Disgruntled with his His employers included Max Dupain, Parer took some stills but mainly mo- salary and allowances, and convinced who was then married to another pho- tion pictures of the Greek (April) and that the Department of Information tographer, Olive Cotton; the couple Syrian (June–July) campaigns, and had victimised his colleagues George became his friends and collaborators. the siege of Tobruk (April–December). Silk and Alan Anderson, he resigned in In late 1938, Parer directed the pho- While flying with the Australian crew August and joined Paramount News. tography of the short film This Place of a Royal Air Force Blenheim bomber, Thereafter he covered American opera- Australia, which depicted (in two parts) he filmed an air raid. Although dissat- tions. At St Mary’s Catholic Church poems by Henry Lawson and Banjo isfied with his efforts, he established in North Sydney, on 23 March 1944, Paterson. Although the film’s camer- himself as the outstanding cameraman he married Elizabeth Marie Cotter, a awork revealed the influence of the in the Middle East. His work was seen 22-year-old clerk. On 17 September cinematographers Tasman and Arthur in newsreels and his name became that year, the second day of the Higgins, and Errol Hind, Parer was at well-known. invasion of Peleliu Island in the Palau his most original and impressive when group, Parer was killed by a Japanese adapting the styles of Australian still When Japan entered World War Two, machine-gunner; he was reported to photographers to motion pictures: Parer returned to Australia. After cover- have been walking backwards behind Dupain’s cityscapes were models for ing operations by Kanga Force around a tank to capture the expression in his sequences showing Sydney and Wau and Salamaua in New Guinea soldiers’ eyes as they went into action. the pictorialists’ use of the Australian in 1942–43, he filmed the Australian He was buried in Ambon war cemetery light in landscape compositions withdrawal along the Kokoda Track in and mentioned in dispatches. His wife influenced the way he filmed the Blue Papua. On 18 September, Cinesound survived him; their son was born in the Mountains. Productions Ltd released the news- following year. reel Kokoda Front Line!, which used SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 In January 1940, Parer – by then a his footage. Introduced by Parer, the Parer was more than a combat cam- photographer with the Commonwealth film and commentary brought home eraman and propagandist. His films Department of Information – sailed to Australians the realities of the war were narratives about the human situ- for the Middle East with elements of in the Pacific. The United States of ation. They reflected his wide reading the Australian Imperial Force. From America’s Academy of Motion Picture in the theory of cinema, especially the the gunboat HMS Ladybird he filmed Arts and Sciences commended ideas of John Grierson. Parer’s record the bombardment of Bardia, Libya, the work in 1943 ‘for distinctive of the everyday lives of servicemen 7 2
1: Ronnie Williams, Damien Parer and Marie Cotter with Marie’s parents 2: Marie Cotter and Damien Parer 3: Damien Parer and Marie Cotter 4: Damien Parer, Marie Cotter and a 1 train passenger (Joshua Alexander) 5: Marie Cotter
anticipated the cinéma-vérité style of documentary. His images of a caped soldier crossing a stream, and of a 3 Salvation Army officer lighting a ciga- rette for a wounded digger (framed like a Renaissance altar painting), became part of the Anzac legend. Parer was 4 a self-effacing man and a devout Catholic. Osmar White described him as ‘long, stooped, black-headed, sallow-faced, smiling’, and remem- Parer’s War as a bered his infectious, ‘bubbling bass 2 love story hoot’ of a laugh.
Neil McDonald, ‘Parer, Damien Peter The filmmakers say in a promotional (1912–1944)’, Australian Dictionary document that Parer’s War is a love 5 of Biography, National Centre of story: Biography, Australian National University,
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Parer’s War http://www.pacificwar. and the org.au/KokodaCampaign/ 3nature of the war KokodaSectionView.html on the Kokoda 3.3 In 1943, Damien Parer wrote a Track and short article – ‘The Cameraman Looks Salamaua At The Digger’. Here is what he has to 2 say about the diggers; add any infor- and the thick vegetation made mation from this to your table: Parer’s War explores Australia’s movement difficult, exhausting, and at Pacific War, and in particular the con- times dangerous. Razor-sharp kunai It is difficult for the average man to un- flicts on the Kokoda Track in Papua grass tore at their clothing and slashed derstand the job the frontline infantry- in 1942 and Salamaua in New Guinea their skin. The average annual rainfall man is doing up north, and his attitude in 1943. What does it tell us about over most of the Kokoda Track is about to it. Even troops working just behind the nature of the war experienced by 5 metres (16 feet), and daily rainfalls the lines, who frequently get bombed Australian soldiers? See maps (Item of 25 centimetres (10 inches) are not and strafed or shelled, sometimes 2) on page 18. uncommon. When these rains fell, dirt don’t realise the extraordinary hard- tracks quickly dissolved into calf-deep ships besetting the forward sections. 3.1 Summarise what the film tells us mud which exhausted the soldiers after They must be seen to be realised. about these aspects of the war. See they had struggled several hundred Item 3 on page 19. metres through it. Sluggish streams What is our soldier thinking when he is in mountain ravines quickly became in the line? If he has been fighting and 3.2 Below is one description of the almost impassable torrents when the is tired, his mind dwells on the past conditions on the Kokoda Track. rains began to fall. or on the future, and his main topic of Assuming it is accurate, do you think conversation are when the hell does Parer’s War has captured these condi- Supply was a nightmare for the sol- he get leave, and what he will do when tions? Justify your views. diers on the Kokoda Track, because he gets it; the battles in which he has every item of food, ammunition and recently fought; the bloody heartbreak- SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 To add to the problems of the equipment had to be man-handled ing hills: the mail from home, and, of Australian troops, conditions on the along the track or dropped by air. course, that ever-green subject, the Kokoda Track were appalling. The Heat, oppressive humidity, mosquitos tucker. narrow dirt track climbed steep heavily and leeches added to the discomfort timbered mountains, and then de- of the rain-drenched Australian sol- His whole existence is bound up with scended into deep valleys choked with diers who were often without adeqate his cobbers. His great contact with dense rain forest. The steep gradients food and even a cup of tea. the outside world are the letters he 9 1
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1: Damien Parer 2: Damien Parer and soldiers 3: Damien Parer
not normal. They have almost reached the stage of animals. Animals? You ask the Japs – they know.
The Jap is a fanatic with subnormal, animal cunning, but our infanteer 3 has been more than a match for him. The Digger asks no beg-pardons. He has adapted himself from the receives – they are his only touch with and has to leave his unit, he is like a heavy-equipment desert war with the home. The family, wife, or girl friend lost man till he rejoins it. Germans to this individual war in the are beauties beyond reach. These men jungle, but he had to learn the hard are hard with others who don’t meas- How can we understand the aching and bloody way. He has outfought the ure up to their own Spartan standards. emptiness when a cobber is killed Jap with the same spirit as he held the Death is not their greatest sadness. beside him? I have seen a man badly Hun at Tobruk, and smashed him at hit; he is lying in a small depression Alamein. The Jap can commit his Hari- Monotony is a great enemy. It is not on the damp ground out of the line Kari for the Emperor and the Imperial the monotony that comes to troops of enemy fire. The Medical Orderly Nipponese Empire, but the Digger who are out of danger areas, the mo- hastily applies the first field dressing has fought, and always will fight for notony of food and living conditions. It to plug those nasty wounds. Above his cobbers; for Bluey and Snowy, for is the monotony of living in the perpet- is an occasional crack of a rifle, and Lofty and Stumpy. ual mud, in continual discomfort. It’s short bursts of machine gun fire. A hard to tell sometimes whether their cigarette is lit and put between his lips. In Neil McDonald and Peter Brune, shim and trousers are wet through His face is a blood-drained yellow, but 200 Shots. Damien Parer and George with rain or sweat. There are long there’s no sign of giving-in here. There Silk and the Australians at war in New nights of fitful sleep in the wet. The is a hard-uttered joke about it being Guinea, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988. long monotonous strain of waiting day a ‘Homer’ this time. And then there is after day, and night after night to sight the untold agony of being moved from 3.4 Look back at your original brain- an unseen enemy in this jungle. the ground to the stretcher. Yes, a half- storm about Kokoda. What would you suppressed cry breaks from him but now change? Can you imagine being on guard on he smothers it. I had to turn away and a dark night with the Japs a stone’s hide the tears that came to my eyes, 3.5 Look back at the list of ten throw away? When every leaf rustling but they were tears of pride. questions that you created for the may be a Jap? May prelude a sudden imaginary visiting Kokoda veteran. Do SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 devilish screaming attack? In any sud- But they go on, day after day, until it you think they have been answered by den danger I don’t think that self-pres- seems endless. The time comes when, Parer’s War? ervation is his first thought. The A.I.F. with sheer weariness, all the talk and man’s code is to be with his cobbers, back-chat are finished. They are be- 3.6 Are there now other questions to fight beside them and never to let yond that. Silent, they go on; they are that you think you would like to ask? them down. If he is wounded or sick beyond all normal thinking, they are
10 1: Marie Cotter and Chester Wilmot 2: Marie Cotter and Ronnie Williams 3: Chester Wilmot and Damien Parer
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Parer as a filmmaker 4– truth and propaganda
4.1 Parer’s War presents some actual footage shot by Parer, and recreates 2 other parts of it. Discuss what you learn from the real and recreated foot- age about these aspects of Parer as a cameraman. You will find additional information in the extracts that fol- low, as well as looking at the original Cinesound newsreels online. See Item 4 on page 20.
Additional information
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Films by Damien Parer Kokoda Front Line! So he doesn’t film the war as he would Damien Parer, The Cameraman Looks http://www.youtube.com/ a race meeting or a football match. At The Digger, in Neil McDonald and watch?v=7WZURx5w0Ps He goes in with the troops, and for a Peter Brune, 200 Shots. Damien Parer Assault on Salamaua short time, becomes one of them. To and George Silk and the Australians http://www.youtube.com/ some extent he shares their hardships at war in New Guinea, Allen & Unwin, watch?v=F7OriulxLYQ and dangers, and their grim sense of Sydney, 1988 Men of Timor humour. He gains their confidence, http://www.youtube.com/ and they will eventually take him and C watch?v=quisMMLJRFo his camera as a matter of course. He must be saturated in the atmosphere The main problem for Parer was light. B of this strange world. Film stock in the 1940s was much slower than it is now – that is, much The Cameraman going in to film He must look at these men with the more light was needed to get an these men and their deeds lays aside open-eyed surprise of a child first see- adequate exposure. Parer opened out his superficial outlook of peacetime ing the world, and comprehend their his lens and slowed the speed of the reporting. In those days he worked greatness as they themselves can- camera to allow more light to fall on for the sensational picture that was not. To them their stirring deeds are each frame. considered if it made a good space on commonplace. It is for the cameraman SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 the front page or the weekly newsreel. to see these things and record them. McDonald and Brune, page 20 This is now replanted by an approach As he works, he plans his story, and that is founded in sympathy. Through his film will be pervaded by a sense D his lens he sees those intimate, human of honesty and closeness that may be details that reveal the true story, where some contribution to the truth of these Parer brought to his task as a war the big spectacle alone would give a fine infantrymen. cameraman a clearly defined concep- cold and lifeless report. tion of what his role should be. As 11 1: Damien Parer 2: Damien Parer and Max Dupain (Linsday Farris) 3: Bob Hawes (Nicholas Bell) and Damien Parer
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early as 1940, soon after he was 2 first appointed, Parer outlined his approach to his new job in a letter to the famous still photog- rapher, Max Dupain: day, this advice proved invaluable. But shooting this way meant surrender- (1) To build a true picture of the ing the construction of the narrative Australian soldier in movie and 3 to others. Parer could not help but be stills. aware that the structure of his most (2) To make good movie single famous film, Kokoda Front Line!, had subjects showing cause and been created at Cinesound by inter- effect (something after March of However, as the newsreels became cutting the footage shot during the Time idea) of why we are here, increasingly important as propaganda, retreat with material taken earlier dur- what we are doing in the long Parer seems to have been influenced ing the cameraman’s journey to Kanga range perspective as it affects us by the head of Cinesound, Ken G. Hall. Force directly ouside Salamaua. and Australia. Hall urged the cameraman to go for his (3) To keep newspapers and news- shots and leave the construction of the All of this is apparent in a particu- reels supplied with really hot narrative to others. Evidence of Hall’s larly revealing diary entry of 9th June spectacular news. influence on Parer is provided in a 1943, a few days before he joined 2/3 note entitled “Advice of Newsreel War Independent Company to make what Neil McDonald ‘The Making of Cameraman” dated October 1942, but he termed his “infantry film.” “My desire Cinesound’s “Assault on Salamaua”’. contained in a notebook of 11 May to do an infantry section film is mount- In T. O’Regan & B. Shoesmith eds. 1943. Parer wrote: ing … The idea is growing more vivid History on/and/in Film. Perth: History every day. It could turn out better than & Film Association of Australia, 1987, In all stories plan for a start, middle the Kokoda Trail film and quite differ- 101–5. and finish. Reaction shots are always ent. When suggesting the idea to Ken of great value. If possible, unposed re- Hall, he was somewhat doubtful as to http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ action shots are the goods. Don’t pan whether it could be put across in a non- ReadingRoom/hfilm/SALAMAUA.html the camera too much just because dialogue film. I disagree, it can be done. you have a beaut tripod; it makes the It can be portrayed in the gesture, the E shots too long and annoys the cutters. faces, the eyes, the everyday incidents of self sacrifice, the hundred trivialities At first, in the Western Desert, Parer All of which is identical to the advice of life. This life that is so far removed concentrated on single subjects. His the Cinesound chief gave his own from our own is one where men are SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 close friend, Ron Maslyn Williams, cameramen. What seems likely is that seen at their finest. No fake; dinkum half who was the Unit’s writer, would the note itself was based on a discus- light (of a man) climbing up the sticky prepare dope sheets that were virtu- sion between Hall and Parer. ridge, (telephoto lense for unposed ally scripts indicating how the footage close ups), helping a wonderful cobber.” should be edited together with an During the retreat from Kokoda, when appropriate commentary. the cameraman was so short of stock Neil McDonald ‘The Making of he was confined to one or two takes a Cinesound’s “Assault on Salamaua”’. 12 In T. O’Regan & B. Shoesmith eds. History on/and/in Film. Perth: History & Film Association of Australia, 1987, 101–5. http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ ReadingRoom/hfilm/SALAMAUA.html
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To shoot the Salamaua footage Parer had 2 cameras, one with 100 ft. magazine – 1 minute and the other with 300 ft. – 3 minutes – also limited amount of stock. To reload he had to Damien Parer use a change bag or, as Osmar White recalls, “do strange things under a groundsheet.” Consequently, even though he would swap cameras Parer producer-in-chief, Ken Hall. He opening shot of Salamaua itself. This had to confine himself to brief telling received very little guidance from the was taken by Parer himself in 1942 shots. He didn’t have the luxury of fol- monumentally incompetent DOI which from a tree lookout, when he covered lowing action in detail. Also he did run left him to his own devices. Indeed, the exploits of Kanga force. The final out of film at crucial times. Perhaps the one statement I have been able to shot of the feet of the soldiers comes the most famous example is during the unearth about propaganda policy is a from Kokoda Front Line!. Hall and his Bismarck Sea battle when Parer per- letter from Hall himself to the secretary editor also play around with the actual suaded the famous pilot Torchy Uren of the DOI. In it he rejects the notion chronology, but Assault on Salamaua to head back into the flack so that he of telling … the men in the street to do is still excellent propaganda. The tight could get the shots he missed when this or that … we want him to leave the editing, a characteristic of Hall’s later he was reloading. theatre believing that what he heard features, the dramatic narration, com- from the screen epitomises what he bined with Parer’s superbly composed Neil McDonald ‘The Making of has been thinking himself all along … visuals, not only celebrate the courage Cinesound’s “Assault on Salamaua”’. Create the ideal, make your subject and sacrifice of the Australian service- In T. O’Regan & B. Shoesmith eds. think it is his idea … and you have got men but encourage the audience to History on/and/in Film. Perth: History him where you want him. identify with the events on the screen. & Film Association of Australia, 1987, 101–5. Parer’s stories gave Hall a golden Essentially, the newsreel presents a opportunity to “create the ideal” and series of highly concentrated impres- http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ to combat home front complacency sions that blur the distinction between ReadingRoom/hfilm/SALAMAUA.html by celebrating the heroism of the the two quite separate engagements at Australian servicemen. the Vicker’s Position and the Timbered G Knoll. Why this was done was explained For Kokoda Front Line! Hall hit on the to me by the film’s editor, Terry Banks: In considering the newsreels made idea of having the intense, patently “What we had was a piece of the action from this material, we are confronted sincere, Parer introduce the news- which we had to make represent the with a quite different set of issues. reel himself, and he returned to the whole picture.” This is why Hall saves What we are investigating is how the format for Assault on Salamaua. But, his best sequence for the end even war was perceived in Australia dur- as he explained to me, the Cinesound though it was taken three weeks before ing this period, and why the newsreel chief had an additional motive for the funeral. Assault on Salamaua con- companies chose to treat Parer’s using Parer’s footage to emphasise cludes with one of the most powerful footage the way they did. Actually, Australia’s role in the war. Always images of sacrifice and mateship to two separate newsreels were made intensely nationalistic, Hall had been emerge from the Second World War. from the Salamaua material, one by exasperated by the way MacArthur No way was the Cinesound chief, who Cinesound and the other by Fox- used his communiques to minimise the told me that “as soon as (he) saw it (he) SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 Movietone. As Cinesound had the Australian contribution. Parer’s stories knew (he) had one of the best shots greater impact, it is their version that I had given him a means whereby he of the War”, going to let its effect be will be concentrating on. could redress the balance. dissipated by placing it in the middle, whatever the dope sheets indicated. Vital to an understanding of It’s worth noting that Hall includes two Cinesound’s Assault on Salamaua shots which do not come from Parer’s Neil McDonald ‘The Making of are the attitudes of the company’s Salamaua footage. The first is the Cinesound’s “Assault on Salamaua”’. 13 1: Damien Parer with camera 2: Damien Parer) and George Weller (AJ Garrett) 3: Damien Parer
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on, has said this about Parer and the Images of the wounded Anzac Legend: and mateship
3 Parer was still preoccupied by the 5.3 Here are three famous images of Anzac legend: ‘The greatest binding the wounded. See Item 5 on page force in our army is mateship. This 21. Compare and discuss them using is found to the highest degree in the the additional information provided infantry platoons and sections. The about them. In T. O’Regan & B. Shoesmith eds. particular quality of this mateship is History on/and/in Film. Perth: History uniquely Anzac.’ Additional information & Film Association of Australia, 1987, 101–5. Neil McDonald, Kokoda Frontline, A note in Parer’s diary about the Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2012 page most famous shot of the New Guinea http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ 284 campaign – the sequence showing the ReadingRoom/hfilm/SALAMAUA.html man being assisted – is quite revealing. He created his own icons of mate- 4.2 Parer wanted to tell the truth. The ship. The man with a cape, the soldier This afternoon a lad, assisted by a Department of Information wanted on the stretcher looking to his friend good Anzac, came along the track. propaganda. Cinesound wanted and he gave us the images of mate- He had a dressing over his forehead impact on the audience. Discuss the ship that was there, Lofty and Stumpy covering his eyes, and his arm was in issue of the insertion of the shots of sharing a cig under a cape … He gave a sling. I got a walking shot of him. He commandos in Kokoda Front Line!. them that … That was the most impor- rested … and Gordon Ayle took him How did it relate to these issues? Was tant thing about him. forward. I went along. The rain started it acceptable to insert this footage? to come down, and as Gordon was Justify your position. http://sgp1.paddington.ninemsn. helping him across the creek a line com.au/sunday/feature_stories/ of carriers passed them. I got a long 4.3 Parer did not film material that article_1540.asp?s=1 shot of the bloke and a close-up. They other artists and photographers did, are the best two I have done so far. such as the killing of prisoners and the 5.1 What is the Anzac Tradition? Perhaps it’s a copy of George Silk’s dead bodies of Australian soldiers. Do blinded digger … but it’s effective just you think he should have filmed such 5.2 Do you think the New Guinea the same. things? Explain your views. war, and especially the Kokoda Track, are an important part of it? Explain This is quite different from Silk’s shot your views. which, as he told me, was taken
Parer’s War and SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 the creation of almost on reflex with the photographer 5 Part of this creation of icons can be barely looking through the viewfinder. iconic images of the seen by studying some stills from Actually, Parer’s shot is an inversion Anzac legend Parer’s films. of Dyson’s “wine of victory” drawing, except the sequence is unashamedly heroic, while Dyson’s is a bitter com- Neil McDonald, the film historian ment on the futility of war – at least for whose work Parer’s War is based the Germans. 14 1
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5.6 Do you think Parer’s Catholicism as presented in Parer’s War sup- ports McDonald’s view? Explain your reasons.
A composite photograph by World War One Australian photographer Frank Hurley
See Item 8 on page 23. 1–2: Damien Parer with camera Photographer Frank Hurley com- 3 3: Damien Parer plained that he could not take a pho- tograph of battle that really showed what it was like. Here he has taken Taking the diary entry and the se- The image of Albert Moore elements of three different photo- quence itself together, we can see lighting a cigarette for graphs to create what he wanted to that what Parer is doing is isolating Private Gardner show about war. a particular incident which, because of its pictorial value, can function as 5.5 Read this information, then look at Parer rejected this approach, even a symbol of mateship and the Anzac the images D and E, (See Item 7 on though Cinesound did something simi- spirit. page 22) and discuss your reaction. lar in Kokoda Front Line! by cutting footage from one place into scenes Neil McDonald ‘The Making of Albert Moore lighting a cigarette for from a different place. Cinesound’s “Assault on Salamaua”’. Gardner is reminiscent of a medieval In T. O’Regan & B. Shoesmith eds. or Renaissance religious painting with 5.7 Do you think it is acceptable to History on/and/in Film. Perth: History its centerpiece Christ being taken manipulate images in this way to cre- & Film Association of Australia, 1987, down from the cross. The analogy is ate ‘truth’, even though it is not an ac- 101–5. strengthened by the fact that Gardner curate capture of a moment? Explain is naked, covered from the waist down your ideas. http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ by an army blanket. Notice also the ReadingRoom/hfilm/SALAMAUA.html composition, with Moore on the right Burial at Salamaua balanced by the soldier drinking from 5.4 Here is another shot taken from the mug on the left. Parer … used Parer filmed a burial of three soldiers Parer’s film.See Item 6 on page images such as this to give the Anzac at Salamaua. War artist Ivor Hele was 22. It is slightly different. Which of legend a subtle Catholic dimension. also there and sketched the scene, the two versions would you choose to Note also the disciple-like Fuzzy- and later painted a picture. See Item SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 use? Does this depend on what pur- Wuzzy Angel in the background. 9 on page 23. pose the image was to be used for? Explain your views. In Neil McDonald and Peter Brune, 5.8 Compare the two images and 200 Shots. Damien Parer and George discuss their similarities and differ- Silk and the Australians at war in New ences. Discuss why those similarities Guinea, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988 and differences exist. The additional pages 58–9. information will help you. 15 Additional information
Extract from Parer’s Diary:
Father English came over this morn- ing to bless the graves of Bonny Muir, Buck and Hooksie. It was raining, the mist was moving slowly over the mountains. Slowly the boys filed down and around the graves, took off their hats and bowed their heads as the Burial Service started. Hard fight, tired men, wet capes. They prayed with true sincerity for their fallen comrades. It was the most moving ceremony I have seen. Not a man looked at the camera – the last shot I took was from underneath, showing these huge figures standing silently by the grave and slowly moving as the service came to a close. Damien Parer with camera
Comments by Neil McDonald: that Gallipoli has. Why not? You can Peter Williams, Kokoda For Dummies, This was an extremely dangerous thing suggest reasons, and then explore the Wiley, Brisbane, 2012 for the men to do, and it was done issue further in the unit ‘Understanding only this once, for Parer. It seems to Anzac Day – Past, Present and Future’ Websites me that Parer was quite consciously in the education resource kit Gallipoli myth-making: finding incidents that and the Anzacs, sent to every second- Australian War Memorial website could virtually become icons. ary school in Australia during April http://www.awm.gov.au 2010. (Enter the search term ‘Kokoda’) Neil McDonald ‘The Making of Australian Government World War Two Cinesound’s “Assault on Salamaua”’. 5.12 Is the Anzac tradition still website In T. O’Regan & B. Shoesmith eds. relevant to young people in Australia http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/ History on/and/in Film. Perth: History today? asfaras/kokoda.html & Film Association of Australia, 1987, Queensland Anzac Day 101–5. Commemoration Committee **FURTHER website http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ INFORMATION http://www.anzacday.org.au/his- ReadingRoom/hfilm/SALAMAUA.html tory/ww2/bfa/kokoda.html Battle For Australia Council website 5.9 Do you think Parer’s War has Damien Parer’s Photographs http://www.battleforaustralia.org. helped you understand Kokoda? au https://www.awm.gov.au/search/all/?q 5.10 In 1992, then Prime Minister uery=Damien+Parer&op=Search§i Children’s books Paul Keating made a deliberate at- on%5B0%5D=collections&filter%5Bty tempt to place the Kokoda Track as pe%5D=Photograph Mark Wilson, Angel of Kokoda, the prime part of the Anzac Tradition, Hachette, Sydney, 2010. and above Gallipoli. He did this for Adult histories Peter Macinnis, Kokoda Track: 101 ideological and nationalistic reasons; Days, Black Dog Books, Fitzroy, his belief that Gallipoli was an involve- Neil McDonald, Kokoda Frontline, 2007. ment in British rather than Australian Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2012 David Mulligan, Angels of Kokoda, national interests, and that Kokoda Paul Ham, Kokoda, HarperCollins, Thomas C. Lothian, Port SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014 was a more purely nationalistic battle – Pymble, 2005. Melbourne, 2006. to defend Australia. Is Kokoda part of Patrick Lindsay, The Essence of Del Merrick, Kokoda Sunrise, Insight, the Anzac tradition? Kokoda, Hardie Grant Books, Elsternwick, 2006. Prahran, 2005. 5.11 Historian Paul Ham says that Peter Williams, The Kokoda Campaign Kokoda has not resonated with the 1942 Myth and Reality, Cambridge Australian people in the same way University Press, Melbourne, 2012 16 ITEM 1
ASPECT BEFORE WATCHING PARER’S WAR AFTER WATCHING PARER’S WAR
When did it happen?
Where was it?
What were the conditions (environment and climate)?
Who was involved?
Why were they there?
Who fought whom?
What was the fighting like?
What was the outcome?
What was its significance?
What does it mean to you today? SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
What do you think would be the greatest effects of war on participants? (You may suggest positive and negative effects.)
17 ITEM 2 SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
18 ITEM 3
The terrain
The climate
The nature of the fighting
The enemy
Leadership
Mateship
The attitudes of the soldiers
The soldiers’ equipment SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
The emotional experiences of war (such as fear, elation, heroism, cowardice, revenge, bloodlust, boredom, etc.)
19 ITEM 4
His aims as a photographer
Preferred type of shots
Composition
Relationship with the subject
Difficulties faced (camera, lighting, film stock, danger)
Elements added to make the film usable in newsreels: - Narration - Editing - Music
Self-editing
Self-censorship SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
Other aspects
20 ITEM 5
A: SKETCH BY WORLD WAR ONE ARTIST WILL DYSON
B: STILL TAKEN FROM FILM SHOT BY DAMIEN PARER
C: PHOTOGRAPH BY GEORGE SILK SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
21 ITEM 6
B2
D: THE ITEM 7 PARER STILL
E: AN EARLY RENAISSANCE PAINTING (1435) BY VAN DER WEYDEN SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
22 ITEM 8
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G: IVOR HELE, ITEM 9 BATTLEFIELD BURIAL OF THREE NCOS
H: STILL FROM DAMIEN PARER’S FILM SCREEN EDUCATION © ATOM 2014
23 Photos courtesy of Jimmy Malecki
This study guide was produced by ATOM. (© ATOM 2014) ISBN: 978-1-74295-443-1 [email protected] For information on SCREEN EDUCATION magazine, or to download other study guides for assessment, visit
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