Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

The Beach (2000)

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‘The strangest of all encounters’

This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

This clip, narrated by David Wenham, explores significant landmarks in the history of the interaction between Australian culture and the beach.

Curator’s notes

The strange encounter on the beach at Gallipoli in 1915 is illustrated by staged footage, photographs and a painting by Sidney Nolan. The new moral freedom of the 1920s brought changes in beach culture. In the 1950s a new sport – surfing – gave rise to surfies and the celebration of surfing on film (see Palm Beach, 1979; Summer City, 1977; and Morning of the Earth, 1972).