The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (DVD) (*)

~~$20.99~~ $17.98

Screened, competed or awarded at:
Australian Film Institute
Cannes Film Festival

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
Australia ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
117 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (2.35:1)

Special Features:
Commentary
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Trailer(s)

Movie filmed in 1978 and produced in:
Australia ( Australia, New Zealand )

Directed By:
Fred Schepisi

Written By:
Thomas Keneally
Fred Schepisi

Actors:
Tommy Lewis ..... Jimmie Blacksmith
Freddy Reynolds ..... Mort Blacksmith
Ray Barrett ..... Farrell
Jack Thompson ..... Rev. Neville
Angela Punch McGregor ..... Gilda Marshall (as Angela Punch)
Steve Dodds ..... Tabidgi
Peter Carroll ..... McCready
Ruth Cracknell ..... Mrs. Heather Newby
Don Crosby ..... Newby
Elizabeth Alexander ..... Petra Graf
Peter Sumner ..... Dowie Steed
Tim Robertson ..... Healey
Ray Meagher ..... Dud Edmonds
Brian Anderson ..... Hyberry
Jane Harders ..... Mrs. Healey

Synopsis:

Based on a novel by Thomas Keneally, which was in turn inspired by actual events, this Australian classic is the shocking tale of an oppressed indigenous man driven to madness and revenge. Jimmie (Tommy Lewis) is a "half-caste" young Aboriginal man raised by a Methodist minister in central-western NSW. Finding low-paid work with white farmers, Jimmy marries a white servant girl who is believed to be carrying his child. Discovering that the child is not his, Jimmy is forbidden from seeing his wife and fired without pay and finally explodes in a fury of violent revenge. His flight across NSW, and his ultimate capture months later, is exquisitely portrayed in this Australian cinema masterpiece.

A 6000 km journey across northern Australia with Tom E. Lewis, who in 1978 played the lead role in Fred Schepisi's Australian feature, 'The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith', which premiered 'In Competition' at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. The life of the character he played was hauntingly close to his own, a young, restless man of mixed heritage, struggling for a foothold on the edge of two cultures. Tom's mother is a traditional Indigenous woman of southern Arnhem Land, his father a Welsh stockman he never knew. In this journey into the past, Tom attempts to find the resting place of his father and to finally confront the truth of his innermost feelings of love and identity. Tom's present-day journey is interwoven with 16mm footage taken in the 1950's of the Roper River mission where Tom grew up.

A stirring epic about the oppression, explosion, and subsequent flight of a half-caste aborigine in the year 1900.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 26 March, 2009.

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