Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows home movie footage shot by George Browne on a family holiday in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, in about 1930. It shows landmarks such as Katoomba Falls, the Sublime Point Lookout, Orphan Rock and the Three Sisters rock formation, as well as views of the eucalyptus forests and the surrounding valleys. The clip also includes footage of swimming baths and the Leura golf links and clubhouse, as well as various houses and gardens. The clip, which is silent and in black and white, features hand-painted intertitles.

Educational value points

• The Blue Mountains began to develop as a holiday destination in the late 1860s with the extension of the railway and the construction of guesthouses, grand hotels and summer residences for the wealthy. From the 1890s it was promoted as a health resort, the fresh mountain air being touted as a ‘tonic’ for a range of ailments from tuberculosis to anaemia. By the 1910s the Blue Mountains, with its spectacular scenery and walks as well as its relative proximity to Sydney (3–4 h by steam train), was seen as the holiday capital of NSW.

• George Browne (1914–96) was an amateur cinematographer who began making home movies in the 1930s using a 9.5-mm camera. The subjects for his films ranged from family celebrations and holidays to footage of national events such as royal visits and the opening of the Sydney Opera House in 1973. He also produced his own version of a newsreel and several short fictional films.

• The Blue Mountains is home to one of the world’s oldest and rarest trees, the wollemi pine, which was discovered in 1994 and consists of a total wild population of fewer than 100 mature trees. An extensive propagation program has been established to sell seedlings of the tree and thus ensure its survival.

• Amateur filmmaking became popular after Kodak’s 16-mm camera and Pathé’s 9.5-mm camera (used here) were introduced in 1923 as relatively inexpensive alternatives to the conventional 35-mm film format. However, these cameras were still priced beyond the reach of most people and it was not until Kodak introduced the Super 8 camera in 1965 that home-movie making was taken up more widely.

• The footage includes typical features of the home-movie genre. The camera is hand held, which results in the image being unstable, and the grandeur of the scenes is captured using a series of ‘pans’ (horizontal camera movements on an axis) that include family members where possible. Home movies provide valuable unofficial records of social history for the period captured.

• Browne’s silent home movie of the Blue Mountains includes hand-drawn intertitles that introduce each segment. In this period the use of intertitles of this level of sophistication in home movies was unusual. Intertitles in feature films were usually printed or drawn onto placards that were then filmed, and became something of an art form, often featuring illustrations and abstract decorations.

• In 1959, 247,000 ha in the Blue Mountains were set aside as a national park, and in 2000 the park was declared a World Heritage Area in recognition of its extensive eucalyptus forests and natural biodiversity. It is home to 400 animal species, including about one-third of Australia’s bird species, 1,300 plant species, 4,000 moths and butterflies, and the greatest variety of eucalypt species in Australia. Early settlers named the area after the bluish haze given off by the oil from the eucalyptus trees.

• The Blue Mountains is a sandstone plateau that covers an area of about 1.03 million ha and was formed about 170 million years ago. The plateau may have been created by volcanic activity that forced the layers of sedimentary rock beneath the sandstone upwards. Creeks and rivers that flowed across the area eroded the plateau and created deep valleys and gorges, which in turn formed the peaks that give the area its mountainous appearance.

• Sandstone escarpments and pinnacles such as the Three Sisters, seen in the clip, are created when softer layers of rock beneath the sandstone erode, undermining the sandstone and causing blocks of it to break off. The Three Sisters were once part of the cliff at Echo Point and will eventually become so narrow that they will collapse. The rock below the sandstone consists of claystone, mudstone and coal measures or deposits, while the basement is made up of metamorphic rock formed from sediments deposited between 470 and 350 million years ago.