Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows black-and-white photographs by Carol Jerrems that record her 1979 stay in hospital where she was receiving treatment for a terminal blood disease. The photographs are accompanied by diary entries, read by actor Justine Clarke, and a soundtrack that combines the noises of a hospital – monitoring equipment, muffled conversations and echoing corridors – with quiet electronic music. The photographs show the ward, fellow patients, nursing staff, a group of doctors on their rounds and a self-portrait of Jerrems taken through a mirror.

Educational value points

• In 1979 Jerrems was diagnosed with polycythemia, a rare blood-related cancer that causes the over-production of blood cells which can lead to blood clots. Jerrems’s primary symptom was a clot in a major vein taking blood from the liver to the heart, which caused her liver to malfunction, and eventually to fail. In the diary entry quoted in this clip she says she is also suffering from pleural effusion, a build-up of fluid between the linings of the lung and chest wall. Jerrems died a few months after these photographs were taken.

• Photographer Carol Jerrems (1949–80) was influenced by the photo-documentary tradition, which uses photography to chronicle everyday life and highlight issues of social justice. Jerrems’s black-and-white photographs focus on the urban counter-cultures that emerged in the 1970s, such as youth gangs, as well as marginalised groups, including women and Indigenous people. However, unlike photo-documentary practitioners, she increasingly involved her subjects in the construction of their portraits. Her work was widely exhibited in the 1970s.

• As with the self-portrait included in this clip, Jerrems often used mirrors to insert herself as either a direct or indirect presence in her photographs and in doing so drew attention to her role in constructing the image. The film quotes Jerrems’s observation that ‘Any portrait is a combination of something of the subject’s personality and something of the photographer’s. The moment preserved is an exchange’. This approach was a departure from the more dispassionate photo-documentary tradition.

• The photographs in this clip reveal how Jerrems turned her camera on herself and her surroundings to record her stay in hospital. Jerrems’s resolve to document the progression of her disease led to her photographing her changing body and the hospital environment until she was too weak to continue – although this final descent is not documented in the clip.

• In this clip Jerrems’s hospital experience is vividly depicted through the juxtaposition of her photographs with her diary entries, and through an evocative soundtrack that combines quiet electronic music with the sounds of hospital life. All of these elements work to provide a very personal perspective on this episode in Jerrems’s life.

• The clip is constructed in a way that enables the audience to share Jerrems’s experience through both the lens of her camera and her words. The decision to use Jerrems’s own words as the voice-over narration gives the photographer a living presence in the text and imbues her story with intimacy and poignancy.

This clip starts approximately 26 minutes into the documentary.

This clip shows black-and-white photographs by Carol Jerrems that record her 1979 stay in hospital where she was receiving treatment for a terminal blood disease. The sequence of photographs is accompanied by a hospital soundscape: beeping machines, wheels rushing through hallways, and feet pattering along corridors.
Narration Today I’ll know if I’m leaving or not. The oedema is getting worse again, and my right lung feels congested. The pleural effusion is still there also, but it feels like time to go. Today is the ninety-ninth day I’ve been here. Fourteen weeks and one day. Long enough. Professor Boyd and entourage have just swished by, beginning their rounds. I’ll know the verdict soon. Last night, I painted my nails to celebrate the occasion. Mulberry Frost. Yes! I am going to leave. But not until tomorrow night.