STONE

Australia, 1974, 115 minutes, Colour.
Sandy Harbutt, Ken Shorter, Hugh Keas-Byrne?, Vincent Gil, Helen Morse.
Directed by Sandy Harbutt.

Stone: the bikie adventure, machines, exhilaration, fraternity, violence, has become a recognised US film genre. Usually production values are minimal and devoted to box-office rather than art. Writer-director-actor Sandy Harbutt has avowed his artistic intentions here and often his film has an arty look, especially in the lengthy riding sequences. He also communicates the melodramatic and rather rigid ritualism of belonging to a group. The bikies are a bizarre mixture of loyalty and the worst adolescent self-assertion. Violence is essential to them; this is frequently repellent, especially the end. The film shows technical competence in Australian work. Really for bikie-enthusiasts.

1. An interesting and enjoyable Australian film?

2. The Australian qualities, atmosphere, technical?

3. The title and the police emphasis? How well did this film fit into the 705 and their police stories? An anti-police film, eg. the 'pig' music in the cemetery? The police at their job, the relationship with ASIO? The picture of Australian undercover police? Police principles and justice predominating, even at the end?

4. The portrayal of police values, despite the bikies? Protection, investigation, non-violence, the code?

5. The film as a bikie film? Comparison with American patterns? The visualising of the bike-riding ethos? The talk about the feeling of freedom etc.? Australian easy-riders?

6. The relationship of the bike gangs to the Vietnam experience? This pattern in American bike films? The dropping out of society? The Vietnam reasons? The group ethos? The seniority, the rules, the dressing in the gravedigger's habit? The code of the bikies? The law unto themselves? Stone's final praise for them (and its irony). Yet the evil in such a group?

7. The Satanist overtones of the bike group? Their name of "The Gravedigger's", the funeral ceremony, Dr. Death, his final spitting at the angel? How real did this seem?

8. The bikies' world of violence, the use of drugs, drinking? Sexuality? For example, the circling of the room during the guitar-playing as the reefer was passed around? The violence at the hotels? Toad taunting the young boys? Stone and his behaviour as an exception to this? How well did the bikies emerge as individual characters? The Undertaker, Toad, Dr. Death, the girls? Their explanation of their background?

9. The importance of people's comments on the group, the garage attendant, the milk-bar attendant, the musician? The attitude of the rival gangs?

10. Was this a film of action or character? The visual contrast of the bikie society and Sydney society? Amanda and her way of life, tennis and her magazine? Stone from his environment and his merging with the bikies?

11. The importance of the opening? Questions of environment? The assassination, the Mafia-like big business? The inter-weaving of these plots? The bikies catching the assassins at the end? How convincing?

12. The visual violence, eg. the assassination, the bikie deaths, the fight with the rival gang, the final bashing of Stone?

13. How much insight into the bikies and their way of life? Urban bikies, the 70s, the loyalty at the funeral, the drag race with Stone giving an atmosphere of freedom and riding, their refuge in the caves on the harbour, the swimming etc.?

14. The finale and the comment on their behaviour? The irony of Stone's words and his being bashed?

15. Insight into values about modern society?