Yellow Fella

Clip 1: Looking for father

Taken from the documentary Yellow Fella (2005)

Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be PG

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

We are introduced to Tommy E Lewis. Tommy speaks about his stepfather who raised him and loved him as his own, imparting Dreaming stories, and his white biological father, Hurtle Lewis, who was like ‘the phantom’. He speaks of his need to find where his biological father is buried so that he can piece his past together in the hope that his spirit can rest.

Curator’s notes

A moving introduction to Tommy E Lewis’s quest to find the final resting place of his biological father. Tommy sets out to find where his father is buried with the hope that it will offer him peace.

Romaine Moreton, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows scenes from the life of Tommy E Lewis as he prepares to set off on a journey to find his biological father’s grave. It includes shots of southern Arnhem Land, Lewis’s mother’s and his own domestic life, a ceremonial dance, and footage from the film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, in which Lewis starred as a young man. Lewis’s voice-over tells the story of his past and explains the purpose behind his journey. A photograph of his father is shown. The clip concludes with Lewis and his mother setting off on the journey in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Educational value points

The clip incorporates scenes from the film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), the central theme of which is identity and alienation, mirroring Lewis’s own background. Jimmie Blacksmith is portrayed as a ‘mongrel bastard’, the child of an Indigenous Australian mother and an Anglo-Australian father, who belongs in neither camp. He feels alienated from his Aboriginal ancestry and is then rejected by the Anglo community to which he aspires to belong. A real-life incident gave author Thomas Keneally the material for the novel on which the film is based.

The clip refers to the importance of the land in storytelling in Indigenous Australian cultures, and the intimate connection between storytelling and the land. Storytelling is both a traditional way of passing on information and a way of maintaining a culture. There are many categories of stories, including sacred stories, public stories, secret men’s and women’s stories, and stories of everyday life experiences. Particular regions have their own stories.

The issue of mixed-race liaisons and the children born of these unions is central to the experience explored in this clip and has been of continuing concern throughout the history of Australian policy on Indigenous affairs. The Welfare Department believed it was in the children’s best interest to be brought up within Anglo-Australian society if they had one Anglo parent (usually a stockman, cook or overseer on an inland cattle station). This policy of assimilation resulted in the resettlement, sometimes forced, of such children to institutions or to foster homes. The 1997 ‘Bringing Them Home’ report documents the official policies conducted in all states and territories and the experiences of those who endured and survived these policies.

The clip features the Indigenous actor Tommy E Lewis. Since being ‘discovered’ by director Fred Schepisi and starring in his first film, Lewis (1957–) has pursued a career in the theatre, in films and as a musician. Lewis was born at Ngukurr (Roper River) in south-eastern Arnhem Land and went to school in Darwin. After he left high school, he was a bricklayer and a stockman before pursuing a career as an actor in Melbourne. He returned to southern Arnhem Land in 2001 and set up the Djilpin Arts Aboriginal Corporation, which hosts the Walking with the Spirits Festival each year. His documentary Yellow Fella was selected to screen at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005.

The Australian film director Fred Schepisi directed The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. Born in Melbourne, Schepisi (1936–) briefly considered the priesthood, but left the seminary and pursued a career in television advertising. He moved into documentary filmmaking with some success before directing his first feature film, The Devil’s Playground (1976). His second feature film, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), was not a great commercial success but won him acclaim overseas. Pursuing a career in the USA, he has achieved further success with Iceman (1984), The Russia House (1989), Six Degrees of Separation (1993) and Last Orders (2001).