ACMI

Of the many fascinating exhibits that I viewed during my visit at ACMI, my favorite was the exhibit on The Ned Kelly Gang. The reason I enjoyed this exhibit so much was that it went further into the story of Ned Kelly and his life and it showed the impact the film industry had on the culture of Australia. After watching a documentary on Ned Kelly this past fall and learning his story and the everlasting controversy regarding him, I was excited to find an exhibit on him. Additionally, it was the first time I had seen anything regarding The Kelly Gang on our trip. The exhibit brought together the background knowledge of his life that I had learned from the documentary and tied it together with the film industry. There were a number of films made about Ned Kelly and his gang, starting in 1906 with “The Story of Ned Kelly”. There was a lot of controversy regarding the release of this film because lower class people who looked up to Ned Kelly as a national hero used it as a motive to follow in his footsteps. The exhibit shared that many children would dress up similarly to Ned Kelly and his fellow gang members and commit robberies and other felonies. As a result, screenings of bushranger films (films of Australian outlaws) became banned in New South Wales in 1912. Additionally, this exhibit has the actual armor used in the 2003 film “Ned Kelly” starring Orlando Bloom. I thought this was incredible since it was the first movie prop we had seen since the props and costumes we saw at the Weta Workshops.

The second exhibit that caught my eye was an aboriginal exhibit. It first caught my eye because there was a large picture of David Gulpilil that looked quite familiar. This is the man who was the producer of the aboriginal film “YULUBIDYI- Until The End” that was shown at our first Flikerfest session. The exhibit did not go into much detail other than a history of his life as an actor. As I remember, he was born in 1953 in the Northern territory near Perth and grew up in a tribal community there. He first debuted as an actor when he was 16 in a film called “Walkabout” in 1971. This film made him known internationally had was a burst for his career. I really enjoyed this exhibit simply because it taught me more about an actor/director that I had the pleasure of speaking with.

tashburn

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