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Clip description
Sydney, Australia, is established as the location of the film and the narration introduces the film’s premise and establishes the filmmaker as the story-teller.
Curator’s notes
This pre-title sequence is very important in setting up the perspective of the film in regard to the telling of this history. The use of the quote from Bertolt Brecht makes it clear that the film is telling the story from the worker’s point of view and the narration using the 'I’ voice lets us know that the filmmaker is speaking as an insider. Clearly the documentary has a specific perspective. It is not trying to present a 'balanced’ view but promises to give an insight into an untold history from the point of view of the rank and file who were actually there.
The esteemed Australian documentary maker, Bob Connolly, worked with Pat Fiske on the editing and narration of this sequence and it is both poetic and political in its promise. The use of wind sound effects, melodic music, gentle narration and rhythmic editing are at odds with the more strident presentation of unionism, strikes and activism that were usually associated with left-wing actions of the time.
