Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Blood Brothers – Broken English (1993)

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clip Elvis is alive

This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Voice-over sums up the fate of both Dixon and Stuart over black-and-white stills of the two. Then we cut to the present day Max Stuart, driving along in his home country, now much older. He philosophises about what people think of his guilt or innocence.

Curator’s notes

The black-and-white footage of the docudrama and the historical footage, is contextualised by the colour footage of the actual Max Stuart. Now an elder living back on his own country, Stuart fulfills an imporant role in his community. He ends this story by saying that there are those who believe he is innocent, and those who believe he is guilty. Broken English while based on the real-life case of Max Stuart, is also an opportunity by the filmmakers to state the inequality of the Western legal system to those people for whom English is not their first language, and in this, is about much more than Max Stuart and the plight of Aboriginal people in courts of law.