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Celluloid Subjects to Digital Directors : Changing Aboriginalities and Australian Documentary Film, 1901-2017
multi chapter work
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'How did Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population go from being the objectified subjects of documentary films to the directors and producers in the digital age? What prompted these changes and how and when did this decolonisation of documentary film production occur? Taking a long historical perspective, this book is based on a study of a selection of Australian documentary films produced by and about Aboriginal peoples since the early twentieth century. The films signpost significant shifts in Anglo-Australian attitudes about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and trace the growth of the Indigenous filmmaking industry in Australia.
'Used as a form of resistance to the imposition of colonialism, filmmaking gave Aboriginal people greater control over their depiction on documentary film and the medium has become an avenue to contest widely held assumptions about a peaceful colonial settlement. This study considers how developments in camera and film stock technologies along with filmic techniques influenced the depiction of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The films are also examined within their historical context, employing them to gauge how social attitudes, access to funding and political pressures influenced their production values. The book aims to expose the course of race relations in Australia through the decolonisation of documentary film by Aboriginal filmmakers, tracing their struggle to achieve social justice and self-representation.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Cultural Warning and Acknowledgement
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I Exotic Subjects, 1901–1966 Chapter 1 The Last of Their Kind: Aboriginal Life in Central Australia (1901)
Chapter 2 Physical Traits: Life in Central Australia (1931)
Chapter 3 Benign and Iconic: Aborigines of the Sea Coast (1950)
Chapter 4 The “Last” of Their Kind, Again: Desert People (1967)
Part II Voices for Change, 1957–1972
Chapter 5 Not Dying Out Quietly: Warburton Aborigines (1957)
Chapter 6 A Discomforting Assimilation: The Change At Groote (1968)
Chapter 7 Challenging White Indifference: Ningla-A-Na (Hungry for Our Land) (1972)
Part III Counting the Cost, 1978–1987 Chapter 8 Telling My Story My Way: My Survival As An Aboriginal (1978)
Chapter 9 On Being Stolen: Lousy Little Sixpence (1983)
Chapter 10 Picking Up the Broken Pieces: Link-Up Diary (1987)
Part IV Digital Directors: Decolonising Documentary Film, 2002–2017
Chapter 11 Setting the Records Straight: Whispering in Our Hearts: The Mowla Bluff Massacre (2002)
Chapter 12 The Sounds of Spaces Between: Willaberta Jack (2007)
Chapter 13 Breaking the Drought at the Sydney Film Festival: We Don’t Need a Map (2017),
Occupation Native (2017), In My Own Words (2017) and Connecting to Country (2017)
Bibliography
Index
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Jennifer Debenham on the Intertwined Histories of Documentary Film and Aboriginality
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 18 no. 1 2021; (p. 193-195)
— Review of Celluloid Subjects to Digital Directors : Changing Aboriginalities and Australian Documentary Film, 1901-2017 2020 multi chapter work criticism'One of the first of the ‘Documentary Film Cultures’ series coming out from Peter Lang, Jennifer Debenham’s new study of documentary about Aboriginal people argues for the benefits of the media ecology approach, which the series as a whole explores. Documentary makers have visited Aboriginal communities for over a century, using technologies that have changed radically during that time; the presumptions and values of successive expeditions altered, as did the nature of the encounters. The films they took away with them and shaped into narratives were some of the most influential lenses through which urban Australians perceived Indigenous Australians. As racial politics shifted, anthropological curiosity gave way to activism on behalf of, then in collaboration with, marginalised communities. By the beginning of the twenty-first century the camera – safer, lighter, more adaptable and cheaper to use – was more often in Indigenous hands and so was the story. Distribution, too, shifted and changed: from cinemas, television, schools and universities, to the current dominance of online streaming and management through government repositories. The media ecology approach seeks to chart how these elements of making, distributing and watching film interact with each other, and with the subjects of the films and their audiences.' (Introduction)
-
Jennifer Debenham on the Intertwined Histories of Documentary Film and Aboriginality
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 18 no. 1 2021; (p. 193-195)
— Review of Celluloid Subjects to Digital Directors : Changing Aboriginalities and Australian Documentary Film, 1901-2017 2020 multi chapter work criticism'One of the first of the ‘Documentary Film Cultures’ series coming out from Peter Lang, Jennifer Debenham’s new study of documentary about Aboriginal people argues for the benefits of the media ecology approach, which the series as a whole explores. Documentary makers have visited Aboriginal communities for over a century, using technologies that have changed radically during that time; the presumptions and values of successive expeditions altered, as did the nature of the encounters. The films they took away with them and shaped into narratives were some of the most influential lenses through which urban Australians perceived Indigenous Australians. As racial politics shifted, anthropological curiosity gave way to activism on behalf of, then in collaboration with, marginalised communities. By the beginning of the twenty-first century the camera – safer, lighter, more adaptable and cheaper to use – was more often in Indigenous hands and so was the story. Distribution, too, shifted and changed: from cinemas, television, schools and universities, to the current dominance of online streaming and management through government repositories. The media ecology approach seeks to chart how these elements of making, distributing and watching film interact with each other, and with the subjects of the films and their audiences.' (Introduction)
