Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows the schoolgirls having a midnight feast and the new girl Laura (Susannah Fowle) being distressed by their terrifying tales of childbirth. In the following scene Laura practises piano as her teacher looks on and expresses surprise at Laura’s proficiency and passion. An older girl, Evelyn (Hilary Ryan), joins Laura for piano practice and comforts and reassures Laura during her outburst about sex and childbirth. As Evelyn stumbles over a Schubert piece Laura assists her and they play together, glancing and smiling at each other.

Educational value points

• Piano music is used powerfully in this clip to display Laura’s emotions and further the plot. At the midnight feast the piano music is at first in the background, but increases in volume as Laura becomes more horrified. Laura’s rendition of Thalberg shows passion and talent. Playing piano brings Laura and Evelyn together, providing an opportunity for the characters to become closer.

• This clip reveals the start of a relationship between Evelyn and Laura, an important plotline in The Getting of Wisdom that director Bruce Beresford believed ‘should form the emotional climax’ of the film. When the film was released there was much debate over what Beresford called ‘Sapphic overtones’ – that is, whether there was a homosexual element to the girls’ relationship (Coleman, Peter, Bruce Beresford: Instincts of the Heart, HarperCollins, 1992).

• The clip shows how costume and set design contribute to the re-creation of a particular period in time – in this case, life at a private girls’ boarding school in late-19th-century Melbourne. The girls’ clothes, long white nightgowns, high-necked long-sleeved dresses and long hair were typical of the time. The music practice room, grand piano and wooden panelling evoke the formality of the era.

• In the late-19th century there was no formal sex education in schools and little acknowledgement of it in the home. The ignorance displayed by the teenage girls (‘bits of stomach twirled around it’) was common at a time when modesty and silence about sexuality was considered appropriate; ‘look not, hear not, speak not, think not, of impurity in any shape or form’ (Warne, Ellen, ‘Sex education debates and the modest mother in Australia, 1890s to the 1930s’, Women’s History Review, 1999).

• In adapting Henry Handel Richardson’s novel to the screen, director Bruce Beresford and screenwriter Eleanor Whitcombe added scenes and themes from Richardson’s unfinished autobiography Myself When Young and moved the story forward a decade so they could use electricity and avoid the cost of installing gas brackets on the sets. Eleanor Whitcombe won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1978.

• Bruce Beresford’s first feature was The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, and he became part of the 'new wave’ Australian cinema period that emerged due to funding initiatives under prime ministers Gorton and Whitlam during the 1970s. His international career was launched in 1980 with the acclaimed Breaker Morant. His film credits also include Don’s Party, Puberty Blues, The Fringe Dwellers, Driving Miss Daisy and Paradise Road.

• The novel The Getting of Wisdom was written by Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson (1870–1946), under the pseudonym Henry Handel Richardson. It was based on her experiences as a boarder at Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne. Like her character Laura, Richardson studied music in Leipzig, Germany, after finishing school. She is best known for the trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930).

Laura and seven other girls are sharing a candlelit midnight feast. They are telling stories about childbirth in quiet voices, clearly anxious not to be caught. Laura appears terrified and disgusted by the stories, in contrast to the other girls who continue eating and drinking, enjoying the gruesome conversation.
Maria When the baby start’s coming, it’s all got to be split right open.
Girl 1 Too grisly!
Kate I heard my mother screaming.
Girl 2 Golly, well look at the size of any baby.
Girl 3 Sometimes they get stuck, don’t they?
Maria. Um. And when it eventually does come out, there’s always bits of stomach twirled around it and they get pulled out too and they have to pick them up and shove them back and…
Kate Um – there’s blood everywhere.
A girl pushes some cake near Laura’s mouth. Laura grimaces and smiles weakly.
Girl 3 You’re not having any? It’s your cake.

Laura plays a dramatic piano piece as the music teacher looks on. She is clearly an accomplished pianist and the teacher seems impressed.
Teacher You taught yourself that during the holidays?
Laura There wasn’t that much to do.
Teacher Well, m’dear. Well… Another half hour’s practice, Laura.
The teacher leaves the room. Laura puts the sheet music aside and begins to play with real emotion. Evelyn enters the room and Laura stops playing. She looks embarrassed.
Evelyn That sounded very like Thalberg to me.
Laura Oh, truly, I didn’t know what I was playing. I wasn’t thinking.
Evelyn You play like that when you’re not thinking? No wonder Hicks is in a dither. This impromptu’s absolutely defeated me.
Evelyn sits down at the piano next to Laura and opens her sheet music. Laura suddenly throws her head onto Evelyn’s shoulder, clearly upset.
Laura I won’t! I won’t let them do that to me!
Evelyn comforts Laura.
Evelyn Who? Do what?
Laura Men. Do that.
Evelyn Oh.
Evelyn smiles to herself.
Laura And I won’t get married. And I won’t have babies. And I won’t let them do that.
Evelyn Alright, that’s settled. Now calm down. What have those little monsters been telling you anyway? Probably a pack of lies.
Laura looks up, surprised. Her face is wet with tears.
Laura Lies?
Evelyn Well, stories. What they don’t know they make up. If it was all so terrible, why would people go on wanting to get married and having babies? Nobody makes them, do they? Besides, men can’t help being different. Have you ever thought that they might be just as scared of women? Think of poor Mr Gurley…
They both laugh.
Evelyn That’s better. I believe there’s only one thing in this life to be scared of and that’s music exams.
Evelyn takes a deep breath before she begins to play the piano. She is concentrating quite hard and plays in a stilted fashion, in stark contrast to Laura’s passionate playing. Laura smiles encouragingly at her and also begins playing.