HERITAGE

Australia, 1935, 94 minutes, Black and white.
Frank Harvey, Franklyn Bennett, Margot Rhys.
Directed by Charles Chauvel.

Charles Chauvel (1897-1959) along with his wife Elsa was a pioneer in the Australian film industry. He directed only ten films over a period of thirty years plus, in 1959, part of a television series, Australian Walkabout.

He began in the silent era with The Moth of Moonbi and Greenhide. These were both in 1926. However, in 1933 he made a docudrama about Captain Bligh – In the Wake of the Bounty, with the young unknown Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian. The next year Errol Flynn was to move to Hollywood.

Chauvel then made Heritage and Uncivilised, two films about Australian history. Heritage is meant to cover the period of almost one hundred and fifty years. While it shows the development of two families, the Morrisons and the Perrys, it goes back to particular episodes involving Governor Phillip and the Macquaries. It is an early attempt to recreate images of Australian history.

The film also has a collage of pictures of Australia, especially Melbourne, in the 1930s. For his war effort, Chauvel made 40,000 Horsemen with Chips Rafferty about the charge at Beersheba, Soldiers Without Uniforms and a more contemporary piece, The Rats of Tobruk, the cast including Chips Rafferty and Peter Finch. His other two films went back to Australian history, the pioneering Sons of Matthew as well as his first colour film, the Aboriginal melodramatic saga, Jedda (1955).

1. An enjoyable and entertaining film? Its place in the history of Australian features? 1930s, nationalism, overview of history, the pioneers? Impact in the '30s, now?

2. The work of Charles Chauvel? This film in the canon of his features? Themes treated by him throughout his films: nationalism, pioneering, English and Irish spirit?

3. Quality of black and white photography, reconstruction of history: 1788, the early years of the colony Macquarie period, Sydney in the 1820s and '30s pioneering, family life, aboriginals and attacks, gold, the passing of the generations, Australian involvement in wars, the '30s, Parliament? The variety of styles for the periods? Editing, special effects? The musical score and the use of classics and popular tunes?

4. The focus of the title and its meaning? The Australian heritage? Britain, the Empire? Ireland? The blend of the British and the Irish? The shaping of Australian nationalism? Pre-suppositions about white British Empire superiority? The place of aboriginals? Politics, the contribution of Wentworth, independence? Loyalty? The views on religion: the children's recitation of the Our Father? The Anglican tradition. Irish Catholicism?

5. The proportion of the film's running time given to various periods? The brief running time of the film? The prologue and epilogue -the origins of the nation. its future? The choice of the families in the 19th. century to typify the pioneer heritage?

6. The use of commentary, captions? The editorialising tone?

7. The presentation of 1788, the visualising of the early convict years. the comments about slavery, inhospitality of the land. the barrenness? Britons in exile? Governor Phillip? English traditions. the officers bringing bread for the meal. the revelation of the home-grown cabbage?

8. The transition to Macquarie's time? Macquarie and his vision and ambitions? The conversation with his wife? His hopes? Francis Greenway and his contribution to architecture? The comments about the planning of Macquarie Street (and its later being visualised as planned)?

9. The extinction of the coastal settlement, the challenge of the Blue mountains and exploration? Macquarie wanting to be remembered?

10. The presence of the aborigines, an acknowledgement of their early hostility, their being seen as savages. the comments on British civilisation? Their offering danger to settlers? Their being 'on the warpath'? Killings. burning of homes, the shooting of aborigines? The taken-for-granted hostility? (And the parallels with American westerns?)

11. The picture of the rough-and-tumble life in Sydney. the wife-ship and its arrival. toughness, the Irish girls. Morrison and his reputation with the girls, the encounter with Biddy and her fiery reaction to him. his winning and wooing her at the dance. falling in love - and his protestations of fidelity and confession about Jane and the country? The glimpses of Sydney society and its roughness?

12. Morrison and his guiding people to the outback? The fat lady and her child waiting to go? The difficulties of the journey across the mountains? Long and Short and their help? The confrontation with the aborigines? Long and Short and their loyalty to Morrison - and their later wanting to go to search for gold?

13. Biddy and Mother Carey. Morrison's disappearance. Biddy's getting the news. her stoic reaction but her tears? Discovering her married and defending her baby. her death? The later painting of the portrait and its hanging in the house for a century?

14. Jane and her propriety, her mother? Morrison not riding to greet her, his almost explaining Biddy? The bushrangers in the inn and the shooting of the mother, her dying wish for Morrison to marry Jane, the marriage, the pregnancy, the birth of the baby? Her life on the road?

15. The glimpses of aborigines and battles with them, the dangers from bushrangers. the effect of the gold rush and the collage of people going to the various fields?

16. The next generation: the families becoming establishment, settled aristocracy with wealth and servants? The sons wanting to go off? The two boys in their young days - friendship, the saying of the Our Father? Their growing up and changing? Morrison's veneration for Wentworth - and his speeches, loyalty, Empire and nationalism?

17. Gold and the subsequent changes, glimpses of Sydney and Melbourne and their developments? The passing decades, involvement in the Boer War, the First World War and deaths? Part of the Australian heritage?

18. The '30s and the families and their status? The Parrys and their wealth and investments? Morrisons' in the Northern Territory? The younger Biddy and her strength of character, being a woman of the world, smoking, flying etc. Morrison and his concern about the development of the North? The bank and its supporting Morrison with Parry's backing?

19. Parliament, Morrison's patriotic speech - the reflection of patriotic attitudes of the mid-'30s?

20. The image of Australia in the '30s? As seen in retrospect? The type of Australia expected at that time, World War Two to come and migration changes? Attitudes now? A critique of the image of Australia in the '30s?