| Title |
Backroads |
| Copyright Title |
Backroads |
| Released |
1977 |
| Production Year |
1977 |
| Director |
Phillip Noyce
|
| Countries of Production |
Australia |
| Comments |
Premiering at the Sydney Film Festival in June 1977, the Film 'Backroads' was the first full length feature film by Australian director, Phillip Noyce. The Film had a budget of only $20,000 form the Australian Film Commission and is recognised as the first Australian film which has had a significant creative input from Indigenous Australians. The film was only ever screened once commercially in Australia, at the Longford Cinema in Melbourne. The film was selected for the Berlin Film Festival in February 1978 where it was well received by European audiences. The film highlights the racial injustice of Indigenous Australians and highlights the political context in which this debate resides. The Film was restored in 2005 as part of the Kodak / Atlab Collection for the National Film and Sound Archive.
|
| Synopsis |
Jack, a xenophobic white vagrant, and Gary, a young aboriginal make an unlikely travelling team, nonetheless they steal a 1962 Pontiac Parisienne and head off around country New South Wales, with the intention of eventually making it to Sydney.
On a pilgrimage of shop-lifting from Roadhouses and service stations, over the course of the film, the pair are joined by three hitch-hikers, the first is Gary's uncle Joe, another is a Frenchman and the third is a young woman who has tired of the shackles of marriage and motherhood, and quite simply wants out.
While the film starts with a seemingly free-spirited tone, it gradually becomes dark and foreboding. Jack's raving monologues become increasingly embittered, and their robberies more violent.
When Joe shoots a service-station attendant from whom the troupe are syphening fuel, a police-chase ensues and Gary is shot dead. Jack and Joe are arrested. |
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References ( click to view )
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| journal - 'Wrong Side of the Road' reviewed: 'bloody Captain Cook bastards coming here' Filmnews. 01-12-2010. pp.10-12 |
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Annie Bickford,
Jeni Thornley
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| A well written analysis of the film, which looks at themes such as genocide, Aboriginal survival, work, racism, and identity, as well as the actual film's fo...[full record]
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| journal - Backroads: From Identity to Interval Australian Cinema, Culture & Criticism V17. 00-00-2001 |
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Stephen Muecke
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| Within this text 'Backroads: From identity to Interval', Stephen Muecke has clearly structured the information to give a logical and concise coverage of both...[full record]
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| journal - Muddying the Mythological waters: Aboriginality in Australian Film Metro. pp.18-21 |
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Karen Jennings
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| [full record]
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| journal - Nationalism in Australian Cinema Cinema Papers. . pp.97-100, 15 |
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Anne Hutton
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| An excellent and detailed look at distinctive approaches to the construction of national identity inAustralian 'period films' made between 1974 and 1979.[full record]
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| chapter - Phillip Noyce: Backroads to Hollywood : Chapter 3: Backroads . 00-10-2004. pp.1-9 |
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Ingo Petzke
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| This text comes from the third chapter in the biography 'Phillip Noyce: Backroads to Hollywood' by Ingo Petzke. It details the commentary of Noyce in an inte...[full record]
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| book - Sites of Difference: cinematic representations of Aboriginality and gender |
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Karen Jennings
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| Discusses the perpetuation of mythologies and stereotypes pertaining to Aboriginality in the Australian Cinema. Examines the cultural construction of Aborigi...[full record]
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| newspaper - That's not a film - this is a film. Science and art come to the rescue of Australian cinema classics. The Age. 17-12-2005. p.12 |
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Steven Down
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| The article 'That's not a film - this is a film. Science and art come to the rescue of Australian cinema classics.' provides an insight into the Kodak / Atla...[full record]
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| chapter - The Imaginary Industry, Australian Film in the Late '80s : The Aesthetic Force Field I: The AFC-Genre and the Social Realist FIlm in the '80s . 00-00-1988. pp.81-97 |
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Susan Dermody,
Elizabeth Jacka
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| This book is a thorough analysis of the Australian film industry during the 1980's. It details conditions such as finance, marketing and government policy wh...[full record]
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| chapter - The New Australian Cinema : Chapter 2: Social Realism . 00-00-1980. pp.27-45 |
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Keith Connolly
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| Keith Connolly provides a detailed overview of the social realist films of the 1970ââ¬â¢s. A variety of films are used to illustrate the political, social...[full record]
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| newspaper - The tough track The Sydney Morning Herald. 12-12-1981 |
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John Hanrahan
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| An article which praises the film for showing the culture of the modern urban Aborigine, saying it picks up where Phil Noyce's "Backroads" leaves off.[full record]
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| book - Well I Heard It On The Radio And I Saw It On The Television An essay for the Australian Film Commission on the politics of filmmaking by and about Abor . 00-00-1993 |
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Marcia Langton
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| In the first section of her essay, Langton discusses the differences between settled and remote, traditional and contemporary Aboriginal communities and how ...[full record]
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Close References
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