Gulpilil - One Red Blood: Walkabout

A generous film that is the result of a collaboration between the subject (David Gulpilil) and the filmmaker (Darlene Johnson). Gulpilil invites us into his world, and offers a narrative that attempts to translate between Indigenous world view and Western sensibility. The title of the film One Red Blood is Gulpilil’s declaration of connectedness, of the world beyond the human experience, of all creatures belonging to the same inhabitable world of the Dreaming.

This film is important in that it speaks about Indigenous philosophy expressed by Gulpilil as being of 'one red blood’ and is comparable to the Eastern philosophical tradition of the presence of the Divine in all things. Such insight into Indigenous world view is seldom expressed, and his capacity to do so ensures that David Gulpilil continues to be a person – culturally and creatively – of incredible artistic significance to Indigenous peoples and Australian society alike. One Red Blood is Gulpilil’s story, a time for Gulpilil – after extensive filmic experience – to speak directly to the world as himself, rather than through the characters through which he has become known locally and internationally. Gulpilil’s filmography includes films such as Walkabout, Stormboy, Tracker and The Proposition.

This program has also screened on NITV, National Indigenous Television.

Gulpilil: One Red Blood synopsis

A documentary about the career of Indigenous actor, dancer, and cultural delegate, David Gulpilil, using interview as well as archival footage.

Notes by Romaine Moreton

Education Notes

This clip shows some of the issues relating to Indigenous Australians in film. It begins with footage of Indigenous actor David Gulpilil talking to admirers at a screening of the film Walkabout in Los Angeles in 1979. It then shows a scene from Walkabout (1971), which was directed by Nicholas Roeg. A series of speakers, Professor Marcia Langton, Indigenous activist Gary Foley, actor Justine Saunders and film critic David Stratton, then discuss the representation of Indigenous Australians in film. The clip concludes with footage from the 1967 film Journey Out of Darkness, in which two Indigenous characters are played by a white man in 'black face’ and by Kandiah Kamalesvaran (Kamahl), who is of Sri Lankan descent.

Educational value points

• Marcia Langton says Walkabout reinforced the belief in the inevitable demise of Indigenous Australians as a race. Until the 1930s it was widely believed that Indigenous Australians were a dying race, an idea that was perpetuated through representations of Indigenous people in film. In Walkabout, Gulpilil’s character leads a lost white girl and boy out of the desert, but commits suicide when the girl fails to acknowledge his love for her. His death has been read as symbolic of the destruction of Indigenous culture by the dominant mainstream culture.

• In the 1970s, non-Indigenous actors were usually cast as Indigenous characters in Australian films. In Journey Out of Darkness (1967) Ed Devereaux 'blacked up’ to play an Indigenous tracker, while Kamahl, a Sri Lankan Australian, was cast as an Indigenous captive. Similarly, James Laurenson was 'blacked up’ to play the lead in the television series Boney (1971–73), despite protests from Indigenous groups. The claim by filmmakers that there were no Indigenous actors available is disputed by Justine Saunders, who was active in Indigenous theatre in this period.

• Foley and Saunders say that roles for Indigenous actors have tended to present negative stereotypes. In the early years of Australian cinema Indigenous Australians were depicted as either menacing and a threat to white settlers or primitive and simple. From about the 1950s this stereotype was replaced by that of the noble, mysterious but remnant savage who inhabited the desert (Gulpilil’s Walkabout character is a noble innocent). Indigenous women continue to be cast as victims, while, as Foley says, Indigenous men often play trackers.

• A 2002 Queensland University of Technology study found that Indigenous actors are still underrepresented in Australian film and television. Respondents felt that there was a perception that they could only play Indigenous roles, and advocated 'colour blind’ casting, where race is not central to the script, such as the role played by Deborah Mailman in the television series The Secret Life of Us. The low numbers of Indigenous people in film and television are another form of racism.

• Walkabout was made by English director Nicholas Roeg, two English children played the leading characters, and the script was written by an English playwright and based on an English novel. Roeg cast David Gulpilil in a lead role at a time when non-Indigenous actors were still being used to play Indigenous parts.

• Gulpilil is an Elder of the Yolngu people, whose homelands are in north-east Arnhem Land. He went to a mission school when his parents died, but prior to this he grew up in the bush and became an accomplished hunter, tracker and ceremonial dancer. It was these skills that attracted Roeg’s attention, although Gulpilil’s acting was also widely praised. The Yolngu people comprise many different language groups, and Gulpilil speaks several of these languages as well as English.

• David Gulpilil was 15 years old when he was cast in Walkabout (1971), the film that launched his career as an actor. His other films include Mad Dog Morgan (1976), Storm Boy (1976), The Last Wave (1977), Crocodile Dundee (1986) and Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002). He received an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor for his role in Rolf de Heer’s The Tracker (2002). Gulpilil was the narrator for and involved in the development of de Heer’s Ten Canoes (2006), in which his son Jamie stars. Ten Canoes is the first Australian film in an Indigenous language.

Education notes provided by The Learning Federation and Education Services Australia