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Conquest (1936)

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The man of the land education content clip 1

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

New Rural Bank employee, Mr Benson and his colleague Mr Richards pay a visit to pioneer farmer Jim Stanley at his property’s homestead. At Mr Richard’s request, Mr Benson asks Jim to share his story of the ‘man on the land’.

A voice-over narrates the ‘epic tale’ of men like Jim who, in the name of progress and national expansion, embark on a conquest with nature. From chopping trees and clearing forests to building houses and sowing crops, the settler courageously faces nature’s constant challenges (including drought).

Curator’s notes

by Poppy De Souza

The constant battle to tame nature is told as an epic and emotive story with iconic imagery of life on the land. This story is ostensibly narrated to Mr Benson for his benefit as a rural representative so that he can better understand the life and needs of clientele like Jim Stanley. Relations between bank and the farming or rural communities they serve has changed dramatically over the decades. In this advertisement, the bank’s representatives not only spend the afternoon visiting and having a drink with Jim the pioneer, they ride out on horseback to see him! The life-long and one-on-one relationship depicted here has become a thing of the past.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows part of a 1930s cinema advertisement for the Rural Bank of New South Wales that tells a dramatised story of how the land was conquered by settlers. It opens with a scene of a district pioneer, Jim Stanley, being invited by Bank representatives to tell the story of the 'man of the land’. The rest of the clip presents part of the story, showing the settler’s arrival, clearing the land, constructing the farm buildings, fences and yards, ploughing the land and bringing in stock. The clip ends with the settler bravely facing the crisis of drought.

Educational value points

  • In telling the pioneer’s story, the clip provides an extended dramatisation of the idea then prevalent throughout most of Western civilisation that progress could only occur if nature was brought under human control. Words such as 'conquest’, 'subjugated’, 'dominion’ and 'domain’ used in the clip emphasise this perspective. The paradigm is even used to explain drought, which is presented as nature retaliating, seeking to regain what has been lost.
  • Telling a story was a common device in cinema advertising and this advertisement follows established storytelling conventions. It begins with the orientation in which the three characters are introduced and the scene set. This clip also contains the complication when the settler faces the crisis of drought and the rest of the advertisement shows the resolution. Audiences often found such advertisements as interesting as feature films.
  • In the 1930s Australia was in the grip of the Great Depression (1929–39), which followed the country’s most widespread drought, up to that time, from 1926 to 1929. Hence the advertisement’s messages that farming was a heroic struggle and that the Rural Bank of NSW understood what the 'man on the land’ was facing. These themes reflected the ideas of one of the Bank’s commissioners, Clarence McKerihan (1896–1969).
  • Among the most striking features of the clip are the dramatic nature of the voice-over script and the emotive background music. The script is full of short sentences making strong statements and it is delivered in emphatic style with frequent changes of pace and tone. The background music is derived from the classical repertoire and makes a good match to the visuals, particularly in the scenes of the bullock teams and as the trees are felled.
  • This clip is revealing in its cultural position as much by what is left out as by what is included. The all-male cast may in part be due to the fact that at the time only men were eligible for bank loans. Neither the narration nor the visuals make any mention of the role of women during the opening up of the country nor the plight of Indigenous people forced off their tribal lands and often denied access to their waterholes and sacred sites.
  • Conquest is an example of the cinematographic work of its director of photography, George Malcolm (1904–77), and much of its visual treatment of farming and grazing is derived from his editing of On Our Selection in 1932 and his filming of The Squatter’s Daughter in 1933. One of the most intriguing shots in the clip is Malcolm’s long close-up of the character of Stanley considering the request that he tell his pioneering story, followed by a fade wreathed in smoke.