The Back of Beyond (1954) is a feature-length award-winning Australian documentary film produced and directed by John Heyer for the Shell Film Unit. In terms of breadth of distribution, awards garnered, and critical response, it is Heyer's most successful film. It is also, arguably, Australia's most successful documentary: in 2006 it was included in a book titled 100 Greatest Films of Australian Cinema, with Bill Caske writing that it is "perhaps our [Australia's] national cinema's most well known best kept secret".[1]
The aim of the film, as requested by the Shell Company, was to associate Shell with the essence of Australia, with Australianism.[2] Heyer took as his central motif the fortnightly journey made by mailman Tom Kruse, along the remote Birdsville Track from Marree, in South Australia, to Birdsville, in southwest Queensland. In 1957, Heyer wrote that this film, when viewed with Francis Birtles' earlier In the Track of Burke and Wills (1916), "clearly suggest[s] that the true image of Australia is, and always has been, the image of Man against Nature".[3]
In simple terms, the film follows a "typical" journey made by Tom Kruse, from Marree to Birdsville, some 325 miles away, showing the various people he met along the Track and the sorts of obstacles he faced. In fact, sometimes described as a docudrama, the film was closely scripted: it comprises a number of re-enactments and a 'lost children' story, rather than chronicling an 'actual' trip.
Nonetheless, many of the people featured in the film were real-life bush characters. They include the bushman-cum-mailman Tom Kruse; Bejah Dervish, the Baloch camel driver who "fought the desert by compass and by Koran"; William Henry Butler, Kruse's record-playing companion; Jack the Dogger who kills wild dingoes; and old Joe the Aboriginal rainmaker. Australian Screen curator, Lauren Williams, suggests that the film "can be read like a collection of travelling vignettes along the Birdsville Track, embracing the experiences of these people and the isolated 'never-never' land they occupy".[5]
The sequences in the film are, as described by Cunningham:[6]
Titles, Introduction
Marree
Travelling, The Night Bog
Etadinna
Cooper Crossing
Kopperamanna Mission
Travelling Vignettes
Lost Children
Windstorm, Birdsville
Production
The film took 3 years to make: one year of thinking and planning, one year of production, and one year to edit and finish it. The film was scripted in advance, though changes were made during filming and production. Of the three years, only six weeks were spent shooting on location.[2]
Heyer prepared the shooting script after undertaking a research trip with Tom Kruse, and location shooting began in late 1952. The film was edited by Heyer in Sydney at Mervyn Murphy's Supreme Sound studio.[7]
Conditions for the location shoot were harsh – with both the terrain and the weather creating difficulties for the crew. Sand, in particular, created havoc with the equipment. Audio-tapes of the soundtrack recorded on location could not be used due to sand damage, and the whole film had to be revoiced in post-production. Lauren Williams writes that "While it was common to post-sync dialogue and sound effects in documentaries at this time, Kruse and other participants in the film expected to hear their own voices up on screen and some of them were reportedly shocked to hear another person's accent coming out of their own mouths".[5]
Themes
Lauren Williams, writes that "the film reconfirms settler anxieties about the outback as a place of isolation, brutal indifference, danger and timelessness" but at the same time presents "the characters in the landscape as survivors, people who endure, battlers with hearts of gold".[5]
Style
John Heyer and Ross Wood, his cinematographer, had both worked for the Commonwealth Film Unit prior to joining Shell. Lauren Williams argues that "Wood's accomplished visual style and Heyer's grasp of film language combine in [the film] to create some of the most iconic images of the Australian outback filmed in this period".[5]
It is generally accepted that The Back of Beyond belongs broadly to the British Documentary movement,[6] and is also seen as being part of a landscape documentary tradition that can be found in the works of Pare Lorentz, Robert Flaherty and Harry Watt.[8] It is best regarded, however, for the lyrical and poetic quality it brings to these traditions. The poetic quality is enhanced by his using the poet, Douglas Stewart, on the script later in the production phase. In 1955, Stewart published a book of poems titled The Birdsville Track drawing from his work on the film's script.
While the film is highly praised and granted 'classic' status, some critics question specific aspects, most commonly the 'Lost Children' sequence. Some argue that it breaks the narrative flow, while others insist that it works well.
Release and distribution
The film, released only in 16mm format, premiered in Adelaide, South Australia, on 5 May 1954, at a charity event to aid the Crippled Children's Association.[9] Its public premiere was at the inaugural Sydney Film Festival in June 1954 and it was shown widely in Australia, including throughout the outback.[9] Its Canberra premiere was held at the Albert Hall on 8 July. Amongst the audience of 300 were many diplomats, including those from the United States of America, Japan, China and Ceylon.[10]
In the first year of its release in Australia, due largely to Shell's extensive distribution and exhibition network, it was seen by over 750,000 people.[7] It was also televised extensively overseas, and represented Australia at several film festivals.[11]
Reception
The film was well received by critics and the public alike. Professor Stout, in an ABC radio broadcast on 1 May 1954 said, prophetically, that "I believe this film will become a classic. It is poetic, imaginative and yet tough at the same time. There is humour in it, unforced and natural ... John Heyer's The Back of Beyond is a landmark in Australian documentary. It will cause a sensation in Britain".[12]
"The final effect is a wholly convincing search for truth and much skill in presenting it ... A vividly fascinating film which sheds a forbidding light on Australian realities and darkens one's suspicions of the universe ... Documentary film has rarely been less self-conscious or more enthralling." (from The Listener, 3 June 1954)
"A small audience sitting in a private cinema off the Strand today saw what must rank as one of the most remarkable documentaries ever made." (from The Manchester Guardian, 19 February 1954)
"... a landscape where man is always solitary, always on the defensive against Nature; once more, the Shell film-makers revive faith in documentary." (from Dilys Powell in Sunday Times, 21 February 1954)
"... is bound to rank as an Australian masterpiece ... the message of the film is by no means one of unrelieved horror and pessimism. There is much hopefulness in the unaffected courage and the humour it finds among the people who live along the Birdsville Track." (from The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 March 1954)
"... is significant on account of the perfect blending of sound, words and images ... The images of the other films shown at the Festival are as static as picture postcards and certainly don't possess the suggestive powers of John Heyer's film." (from Uomini E Film, Venice, Volume 4–5 August 1954)
"... has become acknowledged throughout the world as an outstanding documentary film." (from Charles Chauvel in Walkabout, 1959)
In addition to its being regularly discussed in academic circles and frequent retrospective screenings, evidence of its ongoing longevity as a significant film include:
the publication in 1968, by the British Film Institute, of Eric Else's study guide[14]
the release of a 50th anniversary DVD collection in 2004
the 50th anniversary screening in remote Marree in 2004 that drew a large audience[15]
its listing in 2006 in Hocking's 100 Greatest Films of Australian Cinema
1 2 Shirley, G and Adams, B (1983) Australian cinema: the first eighty years, Sydney, Currency Press
↑ Williams, Deane (2002) 'International documentary film-maker: John Heyer (14/9/1916-19/6/2001)' in Metro Magazine No. 129/130 pp. 248–253
1 2 Weidenbach, Kristin (2003) Mailman of the Birdsville Track: The story of Tom Kruse, Sydney, Hodder
↑ "Outback life told in 'The Back of Beyond'", The Canberra Times, 1954-07-09, p. 2
↑ Pike, Andrew and Cooper, Ross (1980) Australian Film 1900–1977, Melbourne, Oxford University Press
↑ Stout, Alan (1954) 'The Back of Beyond' in Else, Eric (1968) Back of Beyond: a compilation by Eric Else for use in studying John Heyer's film of inland Australia, London, Longman's
↑ Else, Eric (1968) Back of Beyond: a compilation by Eric Else for use in studying John Heyer's film of inland Australia, London, Longman's, p. 152-156
The Birdsville Track is an outback road in Australia. The 517-kilometre (321 mi) track runs between Birdsville in south-western Queensland and Marree, a small town in the north-eastern part of South Australia. It traverses three deserts along the route, the Strzelecki Desert, Sturt Stony Desert and Tirari Desert.
Birdsville is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. The locality is on the Queensland border with both the Northern Territory and South Australia. The town is situated 10 kilometres (6 mi) north of the South Australian border. In the 2021 census, the locality of Birdsville had a population of 110 people.
The Sydney Film Festival is an annual competitive film festival held in Sydney, Australia, usually over 12 days in June. A number of awards are given, the top one being the Sydney Film Prize.
Marree is a small town located in the north of South Australia. It is located 589 kilometres (366 mi) North of Adelaide at the junction of the Oodnadatta Track and the Birdsville Track, 49 metres (161 ft) above sea level. Marree is an important service centre for the large sheep and cattle stations in northeast South Australia as well as a stopover destination for tourists traveling along the Birdsville or Oodnadatta Tracks.
The Oodnadatta Track is an unsealed 614 km (382 mi) outback road in the Australian state of South Australia, connecting Marla in the north-west via Oodnadatta to Marree in the south-east. Along the way, the track passes the settlements of Oodnadatta and William Creek, the southern lake of the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Park, and mound springs known as Freeling Springs, Strangways Springs, and The Bubbler and Blanche Cup.
The former Central Australia Railway, which was built between 1878 and 1929 and dismantled in 1980, was a 1241 km (771 mi) 1067 mm narrow gauge railway between Port Augusta and Alice Springs. A standard gauge line duplicated the southern section from Port Augusta to Maree in 1957 on a new nearby alignment. The entire Central Australia Railway was superseded in 1980 after the standard gauge Tarcoola–Alice Springs Railway was opened, using a new route up to 200 km to the west. A small southern section of the original line between Port Augusta and Quorn has been preserved and is operated as the Pichi Richi Railway.
Tom Kruse may refer to:
John Whitefoord Heyer was an Australian documentary filmmaker, who is often described as the father of Australian documentary film.
The surname Kruse may refer to:
Esmond Gerald "Tom" Kruse MBE was a mail carrier on the Birdsville Track in the border area between South Australia and Queensland. He became known nationally as the result of John Heyer's 1954 film The Back of Beyond. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1955 New Year Honours, "for services to the community in the outback".
Black Chicks Talking is an arts project by Australian actress Leah Purcell featuring a 2001 documentary film, a 2002 book, a stage production and an art exhibition. The film is co-directed by Brendan Fletcher and features Indigenous Australian women including Purcell, actress Deborah Mailman and politician Kathryn Hay. Following the book and film, Purcell wrote a fictionalised dramatisation under the same title.
The Last Trackers of the Outback is a 2007 documentary film about Aboriginal trackers in Australia.
Waterloo is a settlement in South Australia, located just off the Barrier Highway between Manoora and Black Springs, approximately 121 kilometres (75 mi) north-east of the state capital of Adelaide.
Dervish Bejah Baloch (c.1862–1957), also known as Bejah Dervish, or simply Dervish, was a camel driver who played a significant role in the exploration and development of outback Australia, before settling in Marree, South Australia and growing date palms.
Mabo is an Australian docudrama TV film, released in 2012, which relates the successful legal battle waged by Torres Strait Islander man Eddie Koiki Mabo to bring about native land title legislation in Australia.
Bullseye is an Australian comedy adventure film directed by Carl Schultz.
Cordillo Downs or Cordillo Downs Station is both a pastoral lease currently operating as a cattle station and a formal bounded locality in South Australia. It is located about 116 kilometres (72 mi) north of Innamincka and 155 kilometres (96 mi) south east of Birdsville. The name and boundaries of the locality were created on 26 April 2013 for the long established local name.
Australian Inland Mission Hospital is a heritage-listed former hospital at Adelaide Street, Birdsville, Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1952 to 1953 by Ben Hargreaves. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 17 July 2008.
Tom Brennan was a barge built in the Australian state of South Australia in 1949 for use as a ferry at the crossing of the Birdsville Track over Cooper Creek when the creek was in flood in what is now the state’s Far North region. It was withdrawn from service in either 1960 or 1963 and since 1986, it has served as a monument. One of its operators was the mail contractor, Tom Kruse.
Noelle Ora Sandwith was a South African-born English artist. The great-great-granddaughter of the surgeon William Marsden, she trained in art schools of London before earning employment sketching portraits of motion picture personalities. Sandwith hitchhiked the Birdsville Track from August 1952 to February 1953 and sketched its people before travelling to the South Pacific. In 1954, she was the first person to produce a portrait of Sālote Tupou III, Queen of Tonga. A year later, Sandwith returned to England to train to become a nurse, remaining in the health industry until 1979.
References
Burgan, John "The Back of Beyond", Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, ed. Ian Aitken, Routledge, New York, 2006, pp.71–2
Hocking, Scott (ed.) (2006) 100 greatest films of Australian cinema, Scribal Publishing
Lansell, Russell and Beilby, Peter (ed) (1982) The documentary film in Australia North Melbourne, Cinema Papers
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