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Source: www.moviemem.com
form y separately published work icon Jedda single work   film/TV  
Alternative title: Jedda The Uncivilised
Issue Details: First known date: 1955... 1955 Jedda
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'On a lonely cattle station in the Northern Territory, a newly born Aboriginal baby is adopted by a white woman in place of her own child who has died. The child is raised as a white child and forbidden any contact with the Aborigines on the station. Years later, Jedda is drawn by the mysteries of the Aboriginal people but restrained by her upbringing. Eventually she is fascinated by a full-blood Aboriginal, Marbuck, who arrives at the station seeking work and is drawn to his campfire by his song. He takes her away as his captive and returns to his tribal lands, but he is rejected by his tribe for having broken their marriage taboos. Pursued by the men from Jedda's station and haunted by the death wish of his own tribe, Marbuck is driven insane and finally falls, with Jedda, over a cliff.'

(Synopsis from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School website, http://library.aftrs.edu.au)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

form y separately published work icon Finding Jedda Tanith Glynn-Maloney , ( dir. Tanith Glynn-Maloney ) Australia : Since1788 Orange Entertainment Unless Pictures , 2021 23253480 2021 single work film/TV

'At St Mary's Anglican Home, Alice Springs, in 1953, two best friends go head-to-head auditioning for the lead role in a movie, and face the prospect of leaving the Home for good.'

Source: Sydney Film Festival.

y separately published work icon Dispossession and the Making of Jedda (1955) : Hollywood in Ngunnawal Country Catherine Kevin , London : Anthem Press , 2020 18678791 2020 multi chapter work criticism

'In 1955 ‘Jedda’ was released in Australian cinemas and the international film world, starring Indigenous actors Rosalie Kunoth and Robert Tudawali. That year Eric Bell watched the film in the Liberty Cinema in Yass. Twelve years later he was dismayed to read a newly erected plaque in the main street of the Yass Valley village of Bowning. It plainly stated that the Ngunnawal people, on whose country Bowning stood, had been wiped out by an epidemic of influenza. The local Shire Council was responsible for the plaque; they also employed Bell’s father. The Bells were Ngunnawal people.

'The central paradox of 'Dispossession and the Making of Jedda (1955)' is the enthusiasm of a pastoral community, made wealthy by the occupation of Ngunnawal land, for a film that addressed directly the continuing legacy of settler-colonialism, a legacy that was playing out in their own relationships with the local Ngunnawal people at the time of their investment in the film. While the local council and state government agencies collaborated to minimize the visibility of Indigenous peoples, and the memory of the colonial violence at the heart of European prosperity, a number of wealthy and high-profile members of this pastoral community actively sought involvement in a film that would bring into focus the aftermath of colonial violence, the visibility of its survivors and the tensions inherent in policies of assimilation and segregation that had characterized the treatment of Ngunnawal people in their lifetimes.

'Based on oral histories, documentary evidence, images and film, 'Dispossession and the Making of Jedda (1955)' explores the themes of colonial nostalgia, national memory and family history. Charles Chauvel’s ‘Jedda’ (1955), a shared artefact of mid-twentieth-century settler-colonialism, is its fulcrum. The book newly locates the story of the genesis of ‘Jedda’ and, in turn, ‘Jedda’ becomes a cultural context and point of reference for the history of race relations it tells.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Reel Men : Australian Masculinity in the Movies, 1949-1962 Chelsea Barnett , Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2019 17379128 2019 multi chapter work criticism

'Set against the shifting social and political backdrop of a nation throwing off the shackles of one war yet faced with the instability of the new world order, Reel Men probes the concept of 1950s masculinity itself, asking what it meant to be an Australian man at this time. Offering a compelling exploration of the Australian fifties, the book challenges the common belief that the fifties was a 'dead' era for Australian filmmaking. Reel Men engages with fourteen Australian feature films made and released between 1949 and 1962, and examines the multiple masculinities in circulation at this time. Dealing with beloved Australian films like Jedda (1955), Smiley (1956), and The Shiralee (1957), and national icons of the silver screen including Chips Rafferty, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, and Peter Finch, Reel Men delves into our cultural past to dismantle powerful assumptions about film, the fifties, and masculinity in Australia.' (Publication summary)

The silent narrative you may have missed in 'Jedda' Kellie Dillon , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: NEW: Emerging scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies , March vol. 4 no. 1 2018; (p. 98-100)

— Review of Jedda Charles Chauvel , Elsa Chauvel , 1955 single work film/TV
'Jedda, directed by Charles Chauvel and written by his wife Elsa Chauvel, was a landmark film for Australian cinema because of its groundbreaking firsts: it was the first film to cast Indigenous actors in lead roles, the first to be shot in colour, and the first Australian film to compete in the Cannes Film Festival.  Jedda is largely of Australian historical interest as it offers an insight into race relations of the 1950s, ideas of Aboriginal assimilation, and inadvertently, the Stolen Generations.'
The silent narrative you may have missed in 'Jedda' Kellie Dillon , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: NEW: Emerging scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies , March vol. 4 no. 1 2018; (p. 98-100)

— Review of Jedda Charles Chauvel , Elsa Chauvel , 1955 single work film/TV
'Jedda, directed by Charles Chauvel and written by his wife Elsa Chauvel, was a landmark film for Australian cinema because of its groundbreaking firsts: it was the first film to cast Indigenous actors in lead roles, the first to be shot in colour, and the first Australian film to compete in the Cannes Film Festival.  Jedda is largely of Australian historical interest as it offers an insight into race relations of the 1950s, ideas of Aboriginal assimilation, and inadvertently, the Stolen Generations.'
'Jedda' Is YOUR Film 1954 single work review
— Appears in: Dawn : A Magazine for the Aboriginal People of N.S.W. , vol. 3 no. 9 1954;

— Review of Jedda Charles Chauvel , Elsa Chauvel , 1955 single work film/TV
The silent narrative you may have missed in 'Jedda' Kellie Dillon , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: NEW: Emerging scholars in Australian Indigenous Studies , March vol. 4 no. 1 2018; (p. 98-100)

— Review of Jedda Charles Chauvel , Elsa Chauvel , 1955 single work film/TV
'Jedda, directed by Charles Chauvel and written by his wife Elsa Chauvel, was a landmark film for Australian cinema because of its groundbreaking firsts: it was the first film to cast Indigenous actors in lead roles, the first to be shot in colour, and the first Australian film to compete in the Cannes Film Festival.  Jedda is largely of Australian historical interest as it offers an insight into race relations of the 1950s, ideas of Aboriginal assimilation, and inadvertently, the Stolen Generations.'
The Mirror of Whiteness: Blackface in Charles Chauvel's Jedda Ben Miller , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue 2007; (p. 140-156)
'This article posits that Chauvel's early experience in and with "blackface" was a significant influence for his own films ... This article recounts a history of blackface performances, as well as ways of reading blackface, to fill some critical gaps in an iconic Australian film - Charles Chauvel's Jedda (1955). My reading of Jedda will turn the film back onto itself to reflect not just Chauvel, but also a long history of racial representation, spanning many continents and over 100 years, which was always radical and racist, benevolent and violent. When Chauvel wore and directed blackface he was, perhaps quite unconsciously, reiterating racial fictions that had justified violent colonialism and slavery since the eighteenth century. To understand this, Chauvel's work must be read within a history of blackface.' (p.140-41)
In Darwin They Call Me Bobby Wilson Robert Tudawali , 1991 extract autobiography (The Unlucky Australians)
— Appears in: North of the Ten Commandments : A Collection of Northern Territory Literature 1991; (p. 110-113)
Actor and activist Tudawali recalls some of his experiences as an Aboriginal, in particular his work to promote equal rights for Aborigines.
Desert Hauntings, Public Interiors and National Modernity : From 'The Overlanders' to 'Walkabout' and 'Japanese Story' Brigid Rooney , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 67 no. 1-2 2007; (p. 410-422)
Arresting Metaphors : Anti-Colonial Females in Australian Cinema Anthony Lambert , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Postcolonial Text , vol. 1 no. 2 2005;
'This paper attempts to advance new understandings of female cinematic agency by interrogating its connection to patterns of cultural colonialism in Australian film. The visual presence of female Aboriginality in contemporary Australian film undermines, in subtle and explicit ways, the possibility of a truly secure white identity tied to the Australian environment. It does so through the introduction of the complexities of Aboriginal difference, through the subversion of white cinematic narratives and mythologies, and through physical agency and action. In this way, the anti-colonial impulse in the cinema emerges, in films which effectively 'unearth' the continuing cinematic metaphors of colonial power. -- From the journal.
The Land of 'Jedda' Glenville Pike , 2007 single work essay
— Appears in: My Yesterdays : Life of Glenville Pike in North Queensland and the Northern Territory 2007; (p. 81 - 82)
Last amended 31 May 2017 17:37:24
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