EUREKA STOCKADE
Australia, 1949, 102 minutes, Black and white.
Chips Rafferty, Jane Barrett, Gordon Jackson, Ralph Truman, Peter Finch, Dorothy Allison.
Directed by Ralph Smart.
Eureka Stockade is one of several films made by British Ealing Studios in Australia in the late '40s. The trend started with The Overlanders and continued with Bush Christmas and Bitter Springs. Director of The Overlanders, Harry Watt, made this film also. It has an Australian cast led by Chips Rafferty with some British support with Gordon Jackson. The film tells the familiar story of the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat in 1854, the clash between government and police and the miners, which has become something of a historic landmark in Australian history. It highlights in many ways the independent spirit of the Australians and embodies much of the myth of the rights of the workers. This is an entertaining reconstruction, coloured by the British adventure conventions of the time. It is also an interesting example of the qualities of British- Australian co-production of the time.
1. How effective an Australian film was this? Acting, techniques? How British a film was it considering the
interest and capital behind it were British?
2. Was this a satisfying presentation of Australian history? The Ballarat situation: the miners, the diggings, the type of life lived at Ballarat. Raffaelo Carbone was the historian of the stockade - his place on the goldfields and his observing what went on? Alicia as a teacher on the goldfields (the staking of the class area by the miners)? The other miners, the German?
3. Did the film offer scope for an understanding of Australian history - the social impact of the gold rushes? the effect of gold, the change in style of colonisation? questions of democracy and equal rights, of opportunity, the nature of the Australian bush?
4. The impact of the troopers and their patrolling of the mining licences? The atmosphere of injustice and oppression? The behaviour of the troopers? (Noting that one of the troopers was an aboriginal)
5. The meetings of the miners at Bal1arat, how necessary were they? What did the miners want? being presented with the nugget? The attitude of the miners towards the Governor? The intentions of Hotham in confronting the situation?
7. The showing of what Melbourne was like in that era? The situation of Melbourne as a city coming to a standstill because of the gold rush? What choices had Hotham? Could he allow Melbourne to come to a standstill? The stricter measures at Ballarat? stopping people rushing for gold?
8. What were the consequences of the gold rushes for the development of Victoria? Especially the number of people leaving the land?
9. What was the effect of the strict measures on the miners? Could they understand the Governor’s intentions? What was the significance of the shooting and the trial in Ballarat? Was a clash with authority needed?
10. What kind of people were the principal characters: Peter Lalor, as an ordinary miner, as hoping some initiatives would have a sense of what was right and what was wrong, as a leader in Ballarat?
11. How elaborate were the preparations for the fight, the stockade? How seriously did the miners take the clash?
12. Was the battle more then the miners expected? Should there have been such involvement of troopers and soldiers? How fierce was the fighting? Where were audience sympathies?
13. The leadership of Peter Lalor at the stockade? The effect of his being wounded? What did it involve in courage? Alicia and the others going to help him? Their continuing to evade authority?
14. What did the stockade achieve in terms of miners' rights, rights for citizens, attitudes of governments, an Australian with spirit, as implied in the flag, the Southern Cross?
15. How important was Eureka Stockade for Australian History?
