THE PROPOSITION
Australia, 2005, 104 minutes, Colour.
Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, Danny Huston, David Wenham, John Hurt, David Gulpilil, Leah Purcell, Richard Wilson, Tommy Lewis, Robert Morgan.
Directed by John Hillcoat.
A striking film with the power to disturb.
Music video director, John Hillcoat, has made only three films, the 1988 grim prison drama, Ghosts of the Civil Dead and the 1996 New Guinea melodrama, To Have and to Hold. With each of them he has collaborated with musician Nick Cave. Cave has written the screenplay for The Proposition as well as its score and poetic lyrics.
On the one hand, the makers had the traditions of the American Western in view, the films of Sam Peckinpah as well as the Italian films of Sergio Leone. On the other hand, they were making a film about outback Australia in the 1880s, a frontier certainly with similarities with the west but with its own life and problems. Far north western Queensland was still part of the then burgeoning British Empire no matter how different the desert, the rocks and the ranges were from the mother country. British authorities were brought in to keep law and order, not an easy thing with alienated Irish families (think also Ned Kelly in Victoria who was executed in 1880) taking up brutal crime as well as a generally humiliating racist attitude towards the aborigines, especially when they were considered to have ‘rebelled’.
All this is present in The Proposition.
The photography of the landscapes and the skyscapes create a distinctive Australian atmosphere. The sometimes iconic close-up contemplation of faces of both officers of the law and the outlaws suggests a mythical tone for the film. The range of speeches about empire, about Darwin’s Origin of Species as applied to aborigines (in a powerful speech by bounty hunter John Hurt who appears so effectively in only two sequences), about justice and imprisonment, about wealth and poverty offer a great deal of food for thought in what is a very physical and visceral film. This latter is very true of the flogging sequence where the people want vengeance and become disgusted. (Hillcoat has forty lashes while intercutting reactions and a song voiceover making its greater reticence as disturbing as The Passion of the Christ).
Ray Winstone gives his most sympathetic performance as a hard man with a soft side, trying to maintain law and order at the behest of the foppish, wealthy and merciless landowner (David Wenham). Emily Watson impresses as Winstone’s wife, trying to maintain some English gentility, afraid of the brutality and of her own spirit of vengeance. Hillcoat directs a moving scene where she describes a disturbing dream by focusing on the movements and gestures of her hands.
Guy Pearce, gaunt as ever, is the outlaw brother who wants to save his simpleton brother from hanging by going after his older brother, the leader of the crimes of robbery and rape (Danny Huston).
The Proposition is something of a revisionist look at the colonies in the 1880s, especially Queensland. On the frontier life was not easy. One had to be rugged and tough to pioneer settlement and survive. The violence was brutal, towards women, towards the aborigines some of whom were troopers, some of whom rode with the gangs and others were servants – one of the latter, still in his buttoned up attire, wishes his masters a merry Christmas as he removes his boots and walks out of the gate barefoot back into his land.
1.The acclaim for the film? Awards? Impact in Australia? Worldwide?
2.The importance of the visual impact of the film: the locations, the desert, the colours of the sky? The composition of shots? The characters as icons? The editing, the special effects?
3.Nick Cave’s contribution: the screenplay, the musical score and its range, the lyrics, the comment on the action? The religious language in the opening song and at the end?
4.The strength of the cast, Australian and British?
5.The background of the American westerns, the patterning of this film on the westerns, the work of Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone?
6.The credits and the stills, at the beginning and the end? Information, illustration of themes? Recapturing history?
7.The prologue, the editing of the gunfight? The mystery about the cause? The deaths, the prostitutes, Charlie and his being caught, Mikey and his wounds? The police and their treatment of the prisoners?
8.Stanley and Charlie, sitting at the table, Mikey wounded? Stanley’s proposition about the killing of Arthur? The anticipation of Charlie’s going, the riding scenes during the discussion?
9.The 1880s, Queensland, the outback, the small town, the desert around it, the fertile areas? The rocks and the ranges, the caves? Life in the town, in its detail? The heat and the flies? Costumes and décor? The prison and the cells? The homes, the affluent home, the garden? A rounded picture of how people lived in this place, in this time?
10.Arthur and the mystery of his background, his violence? Charlie separating from him and his gang? The concern about Mikey? Arthur and his reliance on Sam and his Aboriginal friend? Seeing people as the enemy, the violence of the robberies and the rape? His way of life, out in the cave, people fearing to go near him? His background, literate? The attack on the Hopkins family, the deaths (as seen in the stills), the rape of Mrs Hopkins and her pregnancy? The attack on the captain, and killing him because of his killing of the Aborigines? Going into the town, the disguise as troopers? The violence towards the troopers, beheading them? The attack on the Stanley’s, Sam and the attempted rape, Charlie’s arrival, shooting Sam, shooting Arthur? His finally sitting outside looking into the sunset with Charlie, asking the final question about what Charlie would do?
11.Charlie, his place in the brothers, sharing the violence, the crime? The Irish tradition – and his angry reactions to Lamb and the Irish jokes? In the shootout, concern about Mikey, listening to the proposition, going out to get Arthur? Travelling through the desert, the days passing, the poetic voice-over in his consciousness? The first meeting with Lamb? The taunts, disguise? His being speared? Sam saving him by shooting the Aborigine? Interaction with Sam, Sam singing? His being healed, especially in the Aboriginal way? Meeting Lamb again, their being tied up? Arthur saving him? The ruse to go into the town, Arthur knowing from the captain that Charlie was going to kill him? His burying Mikey, his grief, his return to the Stanleys’ house, confrontation of the scene, his conscience, saving Martha and shooting Sam, shooting Arthur? Sitting with Arthur dying? The final question and his future?
12.Mikey as a simpleton, the bond of family, Arthur and his forever saying family was important? Being wounded, weeping, used for the proposition? Fletcher and his reaction, wanting Mikey flogged, the thirty-eight lashes (and the way this was filmed, intercutting with the song, with the Stanleys, with the people watching, with Charlie riding? The reactions of the people and their gradually leaving? In prison, the pathos, being taunted by the troopers about his being hanged, with Stanley? The escape, his death?
13.Stanley and his work, the English background, his memories? The house and garden? Fletcher and his orders? Stanley wanting to bring law and order and impose civilisation? His personality, first seeing him discussing with Charlie, the proposition? His reaction to Martha coming to the jail, wanting to protect her from the news about the Hopkins? His interactions with the captains and the captains’ insubordination? With Mikey, the prison, his not wanting the flogging, dropping the key to the cell? Trying to protect Martha, his shock with her coming to the flogging? His continual headaches and taking the powder? His trying to do the right thing as he saw it? The elegance of the Christmas dinner, dressed up, the meal, carving? The jolt of the intrusion, his being shot? Martha and the attempted rape? Charlie coming and saving them?
14.Martha, her British background, elegance? Her friendship with the Hopkins family, her being hurt and angered by the rape? The visit to the jail and her husband sheltering her? Fletcher’s visit, offering the cup of tea, listening outside and getting the information? Taking sides, wanting Mikey flogged? What if it had been her…? Her being horrified? Fainting, leaving? The aftermath and Maurice offering her the soup? The bath sequence, relating her dream – and the director focusing on her hands and the gestures communicating the dream about the child and holding on? Her feeling that this was real even after she woke? The Christmas gentility, the suddenness of the rape? Her being saved?
15.Fletcher, landowner, the foppish style, the dandy dressing? His way of speaking? Being demanding, in the town,the prison, his orders to Stanley, the visit to the house, the cup of tea, his ruthlessness? His presence at the flogging, relentless? Stanley tossing the whip at him and his bloodstained suit?
16.The picture of the police, the different types, callous, their taunting of Mikey? Insubordinate and critical of Stanley? Antagonism towards the Aborigines? The captain and his killing and massacring the Aborigines? Arthur killing him – and his telling Arthur about Charlie and the proposition? The troopers beheaded by the Burns family? The Aboriginal trackers who worked with the whites?
17.The portrait of the Aborigines, of racism at the time, superiority, Lamb’s explanation of Charles Darwin and evolution, his taunt about monkeys, about the Aborigines? The servants, Toby taking off his boots as he went on his holiday? Jocko and his working with the whites, his being killed? The rebel Aborigines, the arrests, the massacre? Arthur’s Aboriginal friends, the woman healing Charlie, the friend and his participation in the killings, the pretence of being a prisoner and getting into the town?
18.Jellon Lamb, John Hurt’s two scenes, drinking, the knife at Charlie’s throat, wanting his name, literate, the discussion about Charles Darwin’s work and his spurning of the Aborigines, his travels? Australia as godforsaken? The second scene and his being sober, tying up the Aborigines and Charlie? His being shot by Arthur, his speech as he died?
19.The townspeople, the trades, the butcher, the men standing round, the women in the street, the flogging and their presence?
20.Colonial period, the formation of the British Empire, the flying of the flag, Australia and its colonies in the 1880s? A revisionist view of Australian history?
