Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows the activities of Captain Starlight (Sam Neill) and some of his bushranging gang as the police close in. Starlight asks his partner, Warrigal (Tommy Lewis), to escape with him to America. Warrigal charges Starlight with failing to understand his connection to country, but decides to go with him. Troopers are shown at target practice, and in the final scene Jim Marston (Christopher Cummins) explains to his wife that the gang must complete one last job.

Educational value points

• This clip, from Robbery under Arms, represents a recent example of a unique Australian film genre, the bushranger film. This distinctive genre was established in Australia before the Hollywood western became popular. It was the most popular genre of film in Australia until 1912, when both New South Wales and Victoria banned bushranger films on the grounds that they made a mockery of the police and glorified outlaws. The ban was not lifted until the 1940s.

• This clip is from an adaptation of the classic Australian novel and newspaper serial Robbery under Arms, written in the 1880s by Rolf Boldrewood, the pseudonym of Thomas Alexander Browne (1826–1915). The novel was popular and was recognised for its use of the first person and the inclusion of colloquial speech. Robbery under Arms was adapted for the theatre in 1890, and five times for cinema between 1907 and 1985.

• The clip includes scenes portraying the life and times of bushrangers, characters who had a firm place in the popular national mythology. 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.

• The argument that arises in this clip between Warrigal and Starlight touches on their equally strong concepts of place and country. Warrigal’s dramatic challenge to Starlight, ‘I belong here. Where do you belong?’ makes clear his affiliation to the country in which he lives. Starlight’s response, accompanied by an upsurge of sentimental music, reveals that he lives far from his home, as a colonist and a dispossessor.

• This clip demonstrates some of the elements typical of the bushranger film genre. The police rehearsing their capture of the gang are portrayed as clinical and calculating, in contrast to the bushranging mates expressing their undying loyalty to one another in the preceding scene, and the seeming innocence of the tender family scene at the end.

• The origin of the name ‘Captain Starlight’, which Boldrewood gave to his hero and which is used in this clip, is unknown. Some historians suggest that Starlight was named after a bushranger referred to by pioneer Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon, while others suggest that the characters of Starlight and his gang were based on known bushrangers, such as Ben Hall and Daniel Morgan.

• Actor and musician Tom E ‘Tommy’ Lewis (1957–) plays Warrigal in this 1985 version of Robbery under Arms. Lewis first appeared on screen as Jimmie in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1977) and then appeared as Jackeroo in We of the Never Never (1981). In Yellow Fella (2005), the first Indigenous documentary selected to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, Lewis tells his own story. In 2006 he released an album of his own music, Sunshine after Rain.

• Actor Sam Neill (1947–) came to international prominence for his starring roles in The Piano (1993) and Jurassic Park (1993) after an early leading role in My Brilliant Career (1979). In 1989 Neill won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role for Evil Angels (1988). In 2005 he won a Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Actor in a Television Drama Series for Jessica (2004). In 1993 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to acting.