We firstly watched a film called Night Cries by Tracey Moffatt who started out as a photographer. The film started out with screams, my first impression of this film got me to think about a horror movie, which I thought the film was going to be. The film that we watched was a short drama. Within the film the main character remembered thoughts about when she was younger, I found that this was very strange and I wasn't sure what to make from it. The main character was under a lot of stress, I felt that it showed me that she wasn't copying to look after the older women. I found that part of the film was very upsetting; as it felt that lots of emotion were displayed by the young women when the old lady died.
I found out from this film that it was made in Australia, it shows us the relationship between Britain and Australia. How Britain invaded Australia when no one was living there. The younger person is looking after the older person in the film. The film is also about a mother and daughter that has been left miles and miles away from the nearest town, they were stranded which explains the train tracks within the film.
After we had looked at the film we then looked at the director of the film, who was Tracey Moffatt. I found out that she was born in 1960 in Brisbane, Australia. She attended the University of Queensland in 1982 and has produces narratives, stills and movies. Something more I, was one of the first pieces that she had created to go on exhibition.
Stolen Generation
Britain had a policy to breed out aboriginal's, if you were in your 7th / 8th generation you wouldn't qualify and children after the 6th generation would be taken away from their families and placed with families that's isn't theirs. In 1970's the children would be placed with foster families or orphanages, however this situation got very bad. This is the basic background for the story of Something More I. Something More I was about aboriginal deaths and custody.
The main character in Night Cries was portrayed by Marcia Langton, she said that the children were taken away from there aboriginal family and placed with a white person to make them feel like they have no one else to look after them and feel like they had no one left. This was what the film Night Cries was based around. When Queen Elizabeth became queen she went on a tour around the commonwealth, where she went to Australia and met Albert Namatjira, who was jailed for six months for supplying aboriginal families with alcohol.
Marcia Langton was Australian who studied aboriginal studies and was the foundation chair. She also attended the University of Melbourne.
I found that this lecture was good and very different, as I learnt quite a lot within this lecture about history.
