THE LAST TASMANIAN
Australia/UK, 1978, 105 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Tom Haydon.
The Last Tasmanian is an acclaimed documentary made by Tom Haydon, who has been involved in television documentaries, eg. Talgai Skull. He brings his cinema techniques and anthropological interest in Australian history to the making of this documentary, with the collaboration of A.N.U. anthropologist Rhys Jones and Jim Clarke, he retraces their work in investigating the origins of the Tasmanian Aboriginals, their stay on the island, the contrast with the aboriginals of the mainland and the confrontation with the white man. The background of the prehistory of the Australian aboriginals is well done - especially with the visuals of the Tasmanian landscapes and seascapes.
The confrontation with the white man, of course, was tragic and was an act of genocide. The background to the extinction of the Tasmanians is filled in, especially the confrontation with convicts and settlers, the role of Governor Arthur, the role, especially, of George Augustus Robinson, the Governor's Agent who rounded up the aborigines in the settled part, exterminated them by violence or by collecting them together where they were prone to disease and where they quickly died. The other 240 were taken to Flinders Island where Robinson arranged that they be civilised and Christianised. A lot of the documentary evidence for this is presented. The film traces then the gradual death rate of these remaining aboriginals down to the last, Truganini. The film also sketches in a background of 19th century belief in evolution and its repercussions on the attitude towards the Tasmanians, they were not the fittest, therefore they did not survive. Camera work, pacing and editing keeps the interest throughout.
There is an epilogue of what happened in Tasmania with the cremation of Truganini in 1876 and her ashes being scattered on the ocean. Narration is by Leo Mc Kern.
1. How interesting a documentary, the amount of information communicated, emotional response to the Australian aborigines, to the Tasmanian aborigines and their extinction, the view of history, the jolt to 20th century conscience? How well did these elements combine?
2. The cinematic qualities of the documentary; colour photography, the use of locations in Tasmania, Europe? The presentation of documents, old photos, audio-visual techniques.
3. How much did the film pre-suppose of Australian knowledge of the Tasmanians and their extinction? Supplying for the ignorance of Australians, of overseas audiences? What emotional response was being elicited? The jolt of conscience? Audience reaction in defence of the 19th century, of ancestors? Condemnatory reaction? The awareness of reparation? An awareness of the need for improved quality of life?
4. The film made much of Darwin's theories of evolution. How well was this illustrated, especially in the oxford scenes and other sequences in museums? The survival of the fittest and its application to the Tasmanian aborigines? How did this contrast with 18th century views of Rousseau and his theories of the Noble Savage? The idealists of the Noble Savage and their disillusionment, especially the anthropologist Peron?
5. The contribution of Rhys Jones, Jim Clarke, Tom Haydon? The detailed anthropological work and the various scenes illustrating this, eg. beachcombing, investigating caves etc.? The qualities of their skill and their conclusions?
6. The presentation of the pre-history of Tasmania? The contrast with the Australian aborigines after the water level of the ocean rose? The hardness of life, the seascapes, their lack of knowledge of fire, their rough homes, their not eating scaled fish etc.? The comments on their technology and the minimum technology that they had? As the most primitive of men?
7. The information about the French anthropologist Peron? The background of the French Revolution, French expansion in the 18th and 19th century? His enthusiasm for Rousseau? The investigations, the detail of his drawings, the friendly relationships? The debt of historians to Peron and his work?
8. The period of exploration and the roles of the Dutch sailors, Captain Cook? The importance of the settlement within the framework of the Napoleonic Wars and French expansion, the British and the settlements in Sydney and Hobart? Convicts and the isolated convicts and the worst of the remote island prisons with their floggings etc.? The brutality in the atmosphere of white settlement?
9. The portrait of the settlers, the convicts, the escape, Governor Arthur and his trying to govern, the pre-suppositions about ruling? The hostile attitudes towards the savages and the way they look, inhumanity? As background for the violence and the fears and the extermination?
10. The aborigines in such primitive technology and isolation confronting the whites, fear, attacks, reprisals?
11. The role of Robinson and his commission as Agent by the Governor? His shooting of the aborigines? The bounty for bringing them in live? Robinson's collecting the aborigines and their hospitalisation, their deaths from disease? Their lack of immunity?
12. The presentation of the settlement on Flinders Island, the irony of their being civilised and Christianised? Their newspaper dealings with money, clothes, fishing etc.? The loss of a culture? The gradual deaths? Robinson's cemetery plan?
13. The portrait of the final aborigines and the ugliness of the corpses being taken for investigation? Truganini and her attitudes, dying in Hobart, her death and burial, her skeleton being exposed to view, the burial in the vault, the 70s re-assessment and cremation and scattering of the ashes? The lack of dignity in the 19th century of the memory of the Tasmanian aborigines.
14. The information about the museums, the amount of documentation available and unexamined? The traffic in skulls and skeletons and the illustration of this? The incendiary bomb and the skulls in the rubble of the foundations of the museum?
15. The significance of presenting Sir William Crowther? As a descendant of a doctor and governor? His attitudes towards the past, his illustrations of his growing up in Tasmania?
16. The final impact of the film? The view of the past, responsibilities of the present, the quality of life for the future?
