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Mad Dog Morgan (1976)

play May contain names, images or voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
clip 'I'm going to cross the river' education content clip 1

Original classification rating: M. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Morgan (Dennis Hopper) has been shot while stealing a horse. He is rescued by an outcast Aborigine, Billy (David Gulpilil), who nurses him back to health in the mountains. They decide to seek safety across the border in New South Wales.

Curator’s notes

by Paul Byrnes

Some very beautiful shots introduce some recurring images – the crossing of the river, with a sense of its cleansing power, leading Morgan into the world of Billy, who teaches him survival skills. Billy’s speech suggests his own unhappy past, the murder of his tribe, and the rape that led to his birth. Bushrangers with black sidekicks are common in Australian cinema. The Proposition is a recent example.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows the injured Daniel 'Mad Dog’ Morgan (Dennis Hopper) with Billy (David Gulpilil), an Indigenous Australian who has taken the bushranger to the mountains. Morgan asks Billy to travel with him across the border into New South Wales. A series of shots, accompanied by an Indigenous chant, show Morgan and Billy riding along a river, and the landscape through which they are travelling. In a new hideout in a mountain cave, Billy plays the didgeridoo and explains his heritage to Morgan. He is then shown throwing a boomerang and a spear as Morgan watches.

Educational value points

  • The clip depicts the bushranger Daniel Morgan (1830–65), whose reputation for volatile and violent behaviour earned him the nickname 'Mad Dan’, although he was called 'Mad Dog’ in the film. According to the film’s press kit, newspapers of the mid-19th century conducted a sensationalist campaign that depicted Morgan variously as a monster, animal, maniac, mad killer and as 'the most bloodthirsty’ outlaw. The illegitimate son of Irish immigrants, Morgan roamed the area around northern Victoria and the Riverina in the 1860s, progressing from horse theft to murder. A reward was offered for his capture and he was killed in a police ambush near Wangaratta in Victoria, in 1865.
  • The first bushrangers were convicts who, faced with lengthy arduous work and harsh often unjust punishments, became 'bolters’, taking their chances in the bush. They robbed farmers and travellers for food, money, guns and horses. Many of the outlaws who flourished during the gold rushes in the mid-19th century were poor free Irish settlers. While bushrangers were greatly feared, some were also admired for their anti-authoritarianism, mainly by the poorer classes who resented the authoritarian colonial administration.
  • As in Mad Dog Morgan, the outlaw as a doomed antihero has been an enduring source of inspiration for Australian filmmakers. Bushranging films, which pre-date the Hollywood western, were the most popular genre of film in Australia until 1912, when authorities banned them on the grounds that they made a mockery of the police and glorified outlaws. The ban was not lifted until the 1940s. The Australian film revival in the 1970s saw the production of Ned Kelly in 1970 and Mad Dog Morgan in 1976.
  • The film is based on Margaret Carnegie’s book Morgan the Bold Bushranger (1974) and depicts Morgan as a poor Irish victim of a brutal society and an oppressive colonial administration, who is driven, through circumstance, to crime. This romantic view of the bushranger is a popular theme in Australian cinema that stretches back to The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), the first bushranger film.
  • The clip shows US actor Dennis Hopper in the role of Morgan. Hopper is a method actor who brought to the role a reputation for being something of a rebel, acquired through films such as the counterculture Easy Rider (1969), which he directed and starred in, and through his off-screen behaviour. Hopper identified with Morgan’s mockery of convention and authority, but his portrayal of the bushranger as colourful and dangerous with a sometimes self-pitying vulnerability produced mixed reviews. Director Phillippe Mora felt that Hopper gave Morgan a singular 'insanity’ and 'intensity’.
  • Mad Dog Morgan was noteworthy in that it had an Indigenous Australian actor in a central role. Until the 1970s the few roles for Indigenous Australian actors tended to be marginal and to reproduce negative stereotypes. Indigenous Australians were typically characterised as menacing and ignorant, the butt of jokes or as lazy drunks. Gulpilil, who appeared in Walkabout (1971) and Storm Boy (1976), portrayed Billy as self-assured and resourceful.
  • The film was shot entirely on location in Morgan’s own territory around the NSW–Victoria border. The second cave shown in the clip was his actual hide-out in the Yambla Range. In the film, the beauty of the landscape contrasts with, and is a counterpoint to, the degenerate 'civilised’ colonials who pursue Morgan.
  • The clip explores Indigenous Australian identity. Billy suggests that he is the product of the rape of his Indigenous Australian mother by a white man. In the 1800s, atrocities were committed against Indigenous Australians, particularly in retaliation for their encroachment on property given to new settlers. The atrocities were also intended to drive Indigenous Australians off their land. Settlers were generally male and the rape of Indigenous Australian women and girls was not uncommon.

This clip starts approximately 24 minutes into the feature.

We see Morgan injured and lying on his back looking up at Billy, the Aboriginal who rescued him. Billy is sitting next to Morgan and is smiling back at him.
Morgan Who are ya? What … what … what be your name?
Billy Billy Ballen.
Billy is holding some hay in his hand and in the other hand he stabs a machete into the ground.
Morgan Good on you, Billy.
Billy smiles back at Morgan and continues to work to get a fire going. He rubs two pieces of wood together whilst Morgan lies there and groans in pain. We then see Billy stoking the fire and Morgan sitting up against the rock.
Morgan I want to cross the river and stay in New South Wales and I don’t want to come back until I’m ready. Will you come with me?
Billy has his eyes closed. He opens them slowly and looks at Morgan.
Morgan Billy!?
Billy lifts something off the fire with a stick and nods at Morgan in agreement.

We see Billy and Morgan both on horses riding fast across the river whilst Aboriginal singing is played in the background. A pleasant waterfall is captured along with picturesque rolling hills on a beautiful day. Billy is seen jumping up out of the water at the bottom of the waterfall. He has a big smile on his face. We see a shot of the sun setting. We see Billy playing the didgeridoo whilst Morgan lays down listening to him. Billy stops playing and puts the didgeridoo down.
Morgan Where do you come from boy?
Billy I don’t know really. I think my father was white. I think … because they came to kill my tribe … because they took the sheep.
We see Billy throwing a boomerang and a spear.