Australian Rules
Clip 1: Go the guts
2 min 36 sec
Taken from the feature Australian Rules (2002)
Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG
Collection: National Film and Sound Archive
Availability of the complete title
Please be aware that this clip may contain the names, images and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may now be deceased.
Curator’s clip description
Gary Black’s voice (Nathan Phillips) introduces the story: The Prospect Bay Australian Rules football team has made the grand final for the first time in years. The coach, the local butcher (Kevin Harrington), gives a post-game rant to his young players, telling them to forget ‘finesse’ and ‘go the guts’ (up the centre). The players snigger behind his back – especially best friends Gary Black (Nathan Phillips) and Dumby Red (Luke Carroll).
Curator’s notes
The opening scene establishes a strong division – not between blacks and whites, but the young and the old, and even the educated and the non-educated. That carries on through the rest of the film in various ways – Blacky’s relationship with his father, for instance. The film sets up two camps with a huge generation gap – the adults, for whom racism is a given, and the young people, for whom it’s not yet an insurmountable fact. The rich comedy of this scene eases the viewer into a fairly confronting story. It also establishes a sense of the importance of football in the community, for both blacks and whites.
Paul Byrnes, curator
have teachers’ notes.
